HDD "tonks"

[Pedro_The_Swift]

the old backup machine has been waiting patiently for a new (old) cpu,,(2months??)
fired it up and it gives me the
DISC BOOT FAILURE
INSERT SYSTEM DISC

go into the bios and no HDD,,
swap ribbons with the cd roms on the Mboard,
see's it at first, posts,
comes up with
DISC BOOT FAILURE
INSERT SYSTEM DISC

actually will boot into XP disc to repair,, but then windows cannot find a HDD

did I mention the TONK coming from the HDD???

yes its relatively old,,, maybe 7 years??

anything else I can try before I throw it away?

[disco2hse]

'fraid she's gone-burger man.

Hope you didn't have anything really important on it. Umm, have tried sticking another drive in as a master and seeing if you can mount it as a slave?

[Pedro_The_Swift]

will it matter if the second (master) also has XP on it?

[disco2hse]

will it matter if the second (master) also has XP on it?

Well, since you normally have two masters and two slaves, just make sure the second possibly dud drive is a slave and not a master. You'll probably need to reset the jumpers on the drive.

[abaddonxi]

You should be able to stick an XP cd in and do a repair install. This should rewrite the os files onto good sectors of the hdd. Then remove anything you wanted to keep. Use the computer for things other than saving files and she'll be sweet until the hdd dies again.

Cheers
Simon

[Pedro_The_Swift]

sorry simon,, it'l boot off the cd but cant find a hard drive to repair---



got a cheap one lying around????

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Well, since you normally have two masters and two slaves, just make sure the second possibly dud drive is a slave and not a master. You'll probably need to reset the jumpers on the drive.

just took the jumper off,,

connected to this PC as we speak,,
seems to be running fine,,,,

no funny noises at all,,,
humming along nicely,,

so now what??

[HangOver]

So lets get this straight:

You have a PC with two HDD's on one ribbon cable?

To test them connect only ONE drive to the end of the cable and ensure its set to master. pull out your ribbon cable for your CD/dvd and leave it disconnected.

Go into the bios and set both your IDE's to auto-detect then reboot your PC, (no XP cd).

If the drive does not show in the bios move the ribbon cable into the secondary IDE socket (cd socket) and try again.
If it still does not show in the bios bin it. If it won't show in bios it will never install XP.

Repeat this process for your other HDD.

If one does show in the bios you are 1/2 way there, then boot to your XP cd and try to install onto the working drive, (if you have one).

Is this what you wanted to know??

[Pedro_The_Swift]

So lets get this straight:

You have a PC with two HDD's on one ribbon cable?

To test them connect only ONE drive to the end of the cable and ensure its set to master. pull out your ribbon cable for your CD/dvd and leave it disconnected.

Go into the bios and set both your IDE's to auto-detect then reboot your PC, (no XP cd).

If the drive does not show in the bios move the ribbon cable into the secondary IDE socket (cd socket) and try again.
If it still does not show in the bios bin it. If it won't show in bios it will never install XP.

Repeat this process for your other HDD.

If one does show in the bios you are 1/2 way there, then boot to your XP cd and try to install onto the working drive, (if you have one).

Is this what you wanted to know??


huh??

no,, one for each,,

can access the TONK drive on primary PC
it shows up everywhere it should,
windows gives it the correct brand and model,,

[HangOver]

huh??

no,, one for each,,

can access the TONK drive on primary PC
it shows up everywhere it should,
windows gives it the correct brand and model,,

OK so you have 2 HDD one on each cable.
it shows in bios but the XP CD will not see it?

is that correct?

[Pedro_The_Swift]

will have to reinstall it in secondary PC to test that,,

:angel:

no reason to think anythings changed though,,

[HangOver]

will have to reinstall it in secondary PC to test that,,


I'm confused?

Is it now working OK?

[Pedro_The_Swift]

allows me to change boot device in the bios to the correctly named hard drive,,,

posts ok,

but then
"disc boot failure"


oh, and it "tonks" again,,,

[HangOver]

Tonks, bangs, tings, etc from a HDD is never good, replace it.

BUT.....if you want to try and get data back or persevere with trying to fix it:

To get your data, (or try to)
boot to the second hard drive and try getting your data once XP starts, leaving the buggered drive connected.

if that doesn't work try writing a new boot sector to the faulty drive. using FIXMBR (repairs or replaces the master boot record of the disk) from recovery console.

then try either booting from it or getting your data from XP if it recognises the drive.

if that doesn't work try
FIXBOOT(writes the "boot sector" to the specified partition.) from recovery console.

then try either booting from it or getting your data from XP if it recognises the drive.

if it still does not work your data is lost, (unless you want to spend $$$.$$)

to possibly rescue the disk but wipe your data:
If neither works you can wipe your boot sector, download ZAP from here link (http://www.microstorage.com/Harddriveinfo.htm#Zap) and "zap" your HDD then try to reinstall XP over the "zapped" drive.
NOTE: if you ZAP your drive you loose all chance of data recovery, (unless you want to spend $$$.$$)

[Pedro_The_Swift]

ok, FIXMBR worked as xp started,
didnt get past the splash screen though
BSOD
session5 violations???


there is nothing valuable on the drive,,
might be better to just reload windows,,???

[disco2hse]

Nah mate. If there's nothing on it worth keeping, chuck it.

On the other hand, there's a guy over here that has ripped the head return magent out and taped it to the side of his oil filter to see if it traps metal fragments ;)

Disk drives are dirt cheap these days. It's not really worth it to persevere with them for too long.

[HangOver]

Nah mate. If there's nothing on it worth keeping, chuck it.

I sort of agree if it was a works HDD it would go in the bin.Thing is with HHD's is once the bugger up they have a habit of doing it more frequently.

If it was mine I would reformat it and use it either as an XPswap drive or for keeping none important stuff on, (if you can reformat it that is?) like mp3's and the like.

[Pedro_The_Swift]

after a bit of a struggle the drive has been reformated
and xp loaded on,,

seems to be fine,,,

lost 7 GB in the conversion from fat to NTFS:eek:

[HangOver]

glad it works now but keep a close eye on it any bumps or clunks start backing up !

the 7GB is usual, it's a percentage of the drive the NTFS uses to keep track of "stuff" just like the FAT file allocation table.