Hard drive failure questions

vampyr07au · 11-27-2009, 07:12 AM

I have a seagate 250gig hard drive that seems to be failing.

When i turn on the computer it is plugged into it will do one of 4 things.

1. It blue screens while trying to load windows.
or
2. Windows loads but cannot see the hard drive.
or
3. Nothing loads at all - no blue screen and no windows - just a black screen.
or
4. Windows loads but when you try to access "my computer" it just freezes.

There is abut 200gig of data on the drive that i need to recover.
Anybodu suggest any way I can recover the data ?

**vladimirb** · 11-27-2009, 07:18 AM

Hello...

First, the best thing to do would be to scan HDD for possible bad sectors...
We don't know if mechanic or electronic is failing...

You can download Seagate diagnostic tool to scan HDD,
but I recommend MHDD 4.6 to scan HDD:

http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

Under MHDD Documentation you will find instructions how to use this tool...
It is a great diagnostic tool and I am using it almost on daily basis...

But these symptoms which you wrote in your post are much likely that HDD is dying...

Keep us posted...

vampyr07au · 11-27-2009, 07:38 AM

Used Hard Disk Regenerator to scan it twice and both times said NO bad sectors at all.

**raptor_pa** · 11-27-2009, 07:46 AM

If hdd regenerator ( which can be a drive killer, stay away from that one ) found the disk, then it is being detected in BIOS. Try scanning the disk with r-studio or getdataback demos and see if either of those can find your files. You can then register that program and output the recovered files to another disk. After the data is safe zero wipe the disk with killdisk or d-ban and repartition and reformat.

vampyr07au · 11-27-2009, 08:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by raptor_pa

If hdd regenerator ( which can be a drive killer, stay away from that one ) found the disk, then it is being detected in BIOS. Try scanning the disk with r-studio or getdataback demos and see if either of those can find your files. You can then register that program and output the recovered files to another disk. After the data is safe zero wipe the disk with killdisk or d-ban and repartition and reformat.

I can't use getdataback or other programs and if you read my original post properly you will see why.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vampyr07au

I have a seagate 250gig hard drive that seems to be failing.

When i turn on the computer it is plugged into it will do one of 4 things.

1. It blue screens while trying to load windows.
or
2. Windows loads but cannot see the hard drive.
or
3. Nothing loads at all - no blue screen and no windows - just a black screen.
or
4. Windows loads but when you try to access "my computer" it just freezes.

There is abut 200gig of data on the drive that i need to recover.
Anybodu suggest any way I can recover the data ?

I already own getdataback and if it was THAT EASY then I wouldnt be posting here asking for others help ....
If i seem like i'm having a go at you i'm not but it's written in my original post that windows is giving me grief with the drive.

**vladimirb** · 11-27-2009, 08:17 AM

As I have posted in my previous post,
use MHDD 4.6 to check if your HDD has bad sectors...

Keep us posted...

vampyr07au · 11-27-2009, 08:19 AM

OK will find that program and try that .... I wasn't replying to you in that last post just to raptor ... my original post noted some pretty specific issues and then he is asking me to try using programs that I can't gain any access to according to the conditions of my original post.

**raptor_pa** · 11-27-2009, 08:36 AM

If HDD regen saw the drive, then BIOS has to be reporting it, or HDD regen wouldn't be able to see it to run. Hence if ONE software can access the drive correctly, other software should be able to access the disk correctly. Is BIOS identifying the drive?

vampyr07au · 11-27-2009, 08:41 AM

Yes BIOS is identifying the drive ... I have no idea why windows is not !
When I boot up and check BIOS first it is seeing the drive ... but windows is still either not loading or blue screening or dropping the drive or freezing during an attempt to access it ...

Unless BIOS is only reporting the drive part of the time ? I don't know.

**raptor_pa** · 11-27-2009, 08:51 AM

That could be, it could also be a simple logical issue with the drive. What is the Stop error on the blue screen, was HDD regen able to scan the entire drive? Is this the system drive or a data drive? What is the model number. Your firast post is a bit confusing - not the post but the symptoms - the boot sometimes indicates the disk can be read if it is the system drive, hdd regen can read the disk, so sftware can access it. It almost sounds like it may not be a drive issue. Bad ram could cause similar flakey issues. you might want to try running memtest86 on the system and verify that. Do you have another system you can try the drive in?

vampyr07au · 11-27-2009, 09:15 AM

OK it's a seagate 3250820A 250gig HDD.
Don't recall what the stop error was but if it does that again I will post details.
My first post describes the situation exactly as it is - sometimes the computer has one issue and other times its a different issue - random occurance.
AT the moment its running as a secondary drive but when I use HDD regen it runs as the ONLY drive.
NOthing wrong with the ram and as far as I can recall the drive coes not run in my other machine either.
I will put it in my other machine to test and see if it causes problems here as well.

vampyr07au · 11-27-2009, 10:24 AM

OK just booted the system with the possibly faulty drive as the primary slave and it booted fine and allowed me access.

About to try booting it with another hard drive added as secondary master so I can try and recover data

will keep you updated

vampyr07au · 11-27-2009, 11:27 AM

And now have the possibly faulty data drive along with one of my good storage drives plugged in AND RUNNING and it's actually allowing me to copy data from it ... hmmmm

**raptor_pa** · 11-27-2009, 11:45 AM

Run memtest86 - that seems to be the most likely issue, the ram may not actually throw an error in normal operation.

vampyr07au · 11-28-2009, 06:56 AM

Ran the possibly faulty hard drive and was able to backup all the data that I needed off it without any issues and have now also run MHDD and nuked the drive, will see how it goes now after partitioning. will run memtest again just to dbl check the ram but that tested fine only last week.

I do also have my doubts about the abilities of memtest because I have used it on ram that I KNOW to be faulty and found it to return a no errors result

**raptor_pa** · 11-28-2009, 07:12 AM

I've always run memtest on a single stick at a time rather than all ram in place. Not sure if that would affect the results tho.

vampyr07au · 11-28-2009, 07:24 AM

I did the exact same thing on a stick of ram which within 2 days of running memtest went back to the shop for replacement and was tested by them and found to be faulty but yet my memtest found it to be in perfect working order .... memtest running on it for like 12 hrs and not even one single error. I only ever test ram one stick at a time

**raptor_pa** · 11-28-2009, 07:36 AM

I can see that happening - particularly if they used a hardware based tester. The same thing holds true for hard drive recovery. Running on software in the system, whether it is memory or a faulty HD - the systems job is to try to smooth any errors so often the errors get glossed over. DOS or Linux based apps are generally better because they remove Windows efforts to smooth over those errors, but they still can't overcome the hardwares efforts to smooth and protect data. Add a task specific piece of hardware that controls the device outside of the system's operation and you can get valid results. For example an ECC error on an HD will either be ignored or bring software based imaging to it's knees, we use a hardware based imager that will make multiple user defineable reads on any sectors returning errors that can't bbe handled other ways and ignore ECC messages. It will compare all the reads and use an algorithm to determine what each bit in the sector appears to actually be. While not perfect it does get a LOT more data off the disk than any software based method that simply ignores ECC sectors. The advantage is it saves our customers a lot of money in jobs that otherwise would have to go into the clean room for head swaps.

vampyr07au · 11-28-2009, 09:17 AM

but running memtest as a DOS boot should eliminate the windows smoothing problem should it not ?

**raptor_pa** · 11-28-2009, 02:35 PM

It is better than Windows, but still has an os that handles the IO, and you have any hardware error correction from the mobo also.

11-27-2009, 07:12 AM	#1 (permalink)
vampyr07au Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 70 OS: Xp pro	Hard drive failure questions I have a seagate 250gig hard drive that seems to be failing. When i turn on the computer it is plugged into it will do one of 4 things. 1. It blue screens while trying to load windows. or 2. Windows loads but cannot see the hard drive. or 3. Nothing loads at all - no blue screen and no windows - just a black screen. or 4. Windows loads but when you try to access "my computer" it just freezes. There is abut 200gig of data on the drive that i need to recover. Anybodu suggest any way I can recover the data ?

11-27-2009, 07:18 AM	#2 (permalink)
vladimirb Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Banja Luka, Serb Republic Posts: 4,159 OS: xp pro sp3, 7 Ultimate 64-bit, Server 2003, Server 2008, VMware vCenter Server My System	Re: Hard drive failure questions Hello... First, the best thing to do would be to scan HDD for possible bad sectors... We don't know if mechanic or electronic is failing... You can download Seagate diagnostic tool to scan HDD, but I recommend MHDD 4.6 to scan HDD: http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/ Under MHDD Documentation you will find instructions how to use this tool... It is a great diagnostic tool and I am using it almost on daily basis... But these symptoms which you wrote in your post are much likely that HDD is dying... Keep us posted... __________________ MCP - MCSA Cisco SMB Account Manager

11-27-2009, 07:38 AM	#3 (permalink)
vampyr07au Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 70 OS: Xp pro	Re: Hard drive failure questions Used Hard Disk Regenerator to scan it twice and both times said NO bad sectors at all.

11-27-2009, 07:46 AM	#4 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 5,814 OS: XP	Re: Hard drive failure questions If hdd regenerator ( which can be a drive killer, stay away from that one ) found the disk, then it is being detected in BIOS. Try scanning the disk with r-studio or getdataback demos and see if either of those can find your files. You can then register that program and output the recovered files to another disk. After the data is safe zero wipe the disk with killdisk or d-ban and repartition and reformat. __________________

11-27-2009, 08:17 AM	#6 (permalink)
vladimirb Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Banja Luka, Serb Republic Posts: 4,159 OS: xp pro sp3, 7 Ultimate 64-bit, Server 2003, Server 2008, VMware vCenter Server My System	Re: Hard drive failure questions As I have posted in my previous post, use MHDD 4.6 to check if your HDD has bad sectors... Keep us posted... __________________ MCP - MCSA Cisco SMB Account Manager

11-27-2009, 08:19 AM	#7 (permalink)
vampyr07au Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 70 OS: Xp pro	Re: Hard drive failure questions OK will find that program and try that .... I wasn't replying to you in that last post just to raptor ... my original post noted some pretty specific issues and then he is asking me to try using programs that I can't gain any access to according to the conditions of my original post.

11-27-2009, 08:36 AM	#8 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 5,814 OS: XP	Re: Hard drive failure questions If HDD regen saw the drive, then BIOS has to be reporting it, or HDD regen wouldn't be able to see it to run. Hence if ONE software can access the drive correctly, other software should be able to access the disk correctly. Is BIOS identifying the drive? __________________

11-27-2009, 08:41 AM	#9 (permalink)
vampyr07au Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 70 OS: Xp pro	Re: Hard drive failure questions Yes BIOS is identifying the drive ... I have no idea why windows is not ! When I boot up and check BIOS first it is seeing the drive ... but windows is still either not loading or blue screening or dropping the drive or freezing during an attempt to access it ... Unless BIOS is only reporting the drive part of the time ? I don't know. Last edited by vampyr07au; 11-27-2009 at 08:42 AM.

11-27-2009, 08:51 AM	#10 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 5,814 OS: XP	Re: Hard drive failure questions That could be, it could also be a simple logical issue with the drive. What is the Stop error on the blue screen, was HDD regen able to scan the entire drive? Is this the system drive or a data drive? What is the model number. Your firast post is a bit confusing - not the post but the symptoms - the boot sometimes indicates the disk can be read if it is the system drive, hdd regen can read the disk, so sftware can access it. It almost sounds like it may not be a drive issue. Bad ram could cause similar flakey issues. you might want to try running memtest86 on the system and verify that. Do you have another system you can try the drive in? __________________ Last edited by raptor_pa; 11-27-2009 at 08:53 AM.

11-27-2009, 09:15 AM	#11 (permalink)
vampyr07au Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 70 OS: Xp pro	Re: Hard drive failure questions OK it's a seagate 3250820A 250gig HDD. Don't recall what the stop error was but if it does that again I will post details. My first post describes the situation exactly as it is - sometimes the computer has one issue and other times its a different issue - random occurance. AT the moment its running as a secondary drive but when I use HDD regen it runs as the ONLY drive. NOthing wrong with the ram and as far as I can recall the drive coes not run in my other machine either. I will put it in my other machine to test and see if it causes problems here as well.

11-27-2009, 10:24 AM	#12 (permalink)
vampyr07au Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 70 OS: Xp pro	Re: Hard drive failure questions OK just booted the system with the possibly faulty drive as the primary slave and it booted fine and allowed me access. About to try booting it with another hard drive added as secondary master so I can try and recover data will keep you updated

11-27-2009, 11:27 AM	#13 (permalink)
vampyr07au Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 70 OS: Xp pro	Re: Hard drive failure questions And now have the possibly faulty data drive along with one of my good storage drives plugged in AND RUNNING and it's actually allowing me to copy data from it ... hmmmm Last edited by vampyr07au; 11-27-2009 at 11:31 AM.

11-27-2009, 11:45 AM	#14 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 5,814 OS: XP	Re: Hard drive failure questions Run memtest86 - that seems to be the most likely issue, the ram may not actually throw an error in normal operation. __________________

11-28-2009, 06:56 AM	#15 (permalink)
vampyr07au Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 70 OS: Xp pro	Re: Hard drive failure questions Ran the possibly faulty hard drive and was able to backup all the data that I needed off it without any issues and have now also run MHDD and nuked the drive, will see how it goes now after partitioning. will run memtest again just to dbl check the ram but that tested fine only last week. I do also have my doubts about the abilities of memtest because I have used it on ram that I KNOW to be faulty and found it to return a no errors result

11-28-2009, 07:12 AM	#16 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 5,814 OS: XP	Re: Hard drive failure questions I've always run memtest on a single stick at a time rather than all ram in place. Not sure if that would affect the results tho. __________________

11-28-2009, 07:24 AM	#17 (permalink)
vampyr07au Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 70 OS: Xp pro	Re: Hard drive failure questions I did the exact same thing on a stick of ram which within 2 days of running memtest went back to the shop for replacement and was tested by them and found to be faulty but yet my memtest found it to be in perfect working order .... memtest running on it for like 12 hrs and not even one single error. I only ever test ram one stick at a time

11-28-2009, 07:36 AM	#18 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 5,814 OS: XP	Re: Hard drive failure questions I can see that happening - particularly if they used a hardware based tester. The same thing holds true for hard drive recovery. Running on software in the system, whether it is memory or a faulty HD - the systems job is to try to smooth any errors so often the errors get glossed over. DOS or Linux based apps are generally better because they remove Windows efforts to smooth over those errors, but they still can't overcome the hardwares efforts to smooth and protect data. Add a task specific piece of hardware that controls the device outside of the system's operation and you can get valid results. For example an ECC error on an HD will either be ignored or bring software based imaging to it's knees, we use a hardware based imager that will make multiple user defineable reads on any sectors returning errors that can't bbe handled other ways and ignore ECC messages. It will compare all the reads and use an algorithm to determine what each bit in the sector appears to actually be. While not perfect it does get a LOT more data off the disk than any software based method that simply ignores ECC sectors. The advantage is it saves our customers a lot of money in jobs that otherwise would have to go into the clean room for head swaps. __________________

11-28-2009, 09:17 AM	#19 (permalink)
vampyr07au Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 70 OS: Xp pro	Re: Hard drive failure questions but running memtest as a DOS boot should eliminate the windows smoothing problem should it not ?

11-28-2009, 02:35 PM	#20 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 5,814 OS: XP	Re: Hard drive failure questions It is better than Windows, but still has an os that handles the IO, and you have any hardware error correction from the mobo also. __________________