Hard Drive Failure

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Mr.Cheeks, Jul 13, 2006.

  1. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    One of the guys at work called me yesterday whilst i was at on site and said his hdd has failed on him - he said someone from IT came down to see it and the IT dude said that he cannot retrieve the data.

    Today i logged into my laptop and tried to use Linux Live but it does not boot up, i cant access the bios (to see boot order) as after 1 second the winxp screen would of popped up...

    if the same thing happens with my colleague, what would the best course of action be? the drive is NTFS - XP? just need to retrieve data from my documents...

    edit: looking at bootdisk.com and thinking about 98se floppy bootdisk, if he has a flop drive.

    edit2: bootdisk.com not loading...
     
  2. r.h.lee

    r.h.lee Gigabyte Poster

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    TheCheekMaster,

    Can you find out what is the manufacturer of the hard drive?
     
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  3. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    just found out that its the pc he is using, and its bolted with those security locks and i'll wait for him to arrive to see if he has the key.
     
  4. r.h.lee

    r.h.lee Gigabyte Poster

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    TheCheekMaster,

    I hope the security lock bolts weren't drilled through the PC case without taking the internals into consideration. :tongue:
     
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  5. wizard

    wizard Petabyte Poster

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    Ouch :D
     
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  6. r.h.lee

    r.h.lee Gigabyte Poster

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  7. wizard

    wizard Petabyte Poster

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  8. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    You can't use Win98SE to read a NTFS partition! (Not without a *lot* of work)

    Best way is a BartPE CD and boot with that. Then see if you can read the drive. You could also try a Linux Live CD, as sometimes the NTFS reader software in that can read stuff that the 'official' driver has trouble with.

    Harry.
     
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  9. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    yeah i realised about the NTFS afterwards...

    what IF i cannot boot using the disk? like my laptop its not booting of cd aswell, cant access the bios...
     
  10. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    The question here is why you can't access the BIOS?

    If this is a company machine and has been locked down then any attempt by you to circumvent this might be very counter-productive! If there is some other reason you'll need to say why so we can work out how to change the boot order.

    Harry.
     
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  11. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    he is using a pc so i should be able to boot of the cd...

    not accessing the bios - thats with my laptop, after around 1 sec of pressing the power button, i have the winxp logo on and around 3 secs later, its loaded...
     
  12. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    Try holding the BIOS access button down *while* you switch it on?

    Harry.
     
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  13. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    hmmm....

    have a look at http://mykmk.com/tecraM2/ and under booting Knoppix

    have no access to the tools :x but my laptop is fine, i'l just sit around and wait for the clown..
     
  14. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    Have a look at this page under 'a useful trick' to see if this helps getting into the BIOS.

    Harry.
     
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  15. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    cheers, i'll try it when i shut down before i go to lunch when is going to be in the next 10 seconds! :biggrin
     
  16. elli5on

    elli5on Kilobyte Poster

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    Must be annoying not being able to access your BIOS. But those loading times you have stated for it to load into windows are very quick! Just a quick question though.....

    How much NOS do you have attached to your pc to make it go so fast??? Mine takes a wee while longer than that.


    Craig
     
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  17. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    its got a 1280 of ram, xp sp1, 1.6M, im not sure why its that fast aswell!

    i had a quick look at the pc, strange there was no hdd in the bios, nor in live cd... opened it up and the it dude left the power connector out, not sure why though...

    plugged it back in and still cannot access the drive, but was told by my gaffar that its has nothing to do with me so if i wanted to look at it, it would be only during lunch time, now lunch time is over..

    any ideas?

    edit: cheers for the link Harry - sweeeet!
     
  18. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    So what error message do you get? And have you tried booting it with either of the CDs I suggested?

    So you now have access to the BIOS on your Tosh? <grin> One of the things I suggest for such situations is to put in a longer delay during boot - usualy a BIOS option - which makes it easier to get into the BIOS in future.

    Harry.
     
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  19. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    Yes i did, the cds booted, but there was no hdd in the "explorer" window... as per the message i cant remember the exact wording, but it was referring to the bios, which when i went there, the hdd did show up, and it was in the boot order, also i had the F1 for BIOS MENU and F12 for NETWORK BOOT...

    i'll leave it as is, not my laptop to play with... im sure you know what i mean...

    anyhows, i not allowed to help other people cuz they are not paying for my services, so unfortuantely i will have to leave it at that :x
     
  20. Theprof

    Theprof Petabyte Poster

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    Try disconnecting the floppy drive, cdrom drives, and just have the HD connected, then access the bios, once inside set the post check to regular cause it seems as if you have it set to minimal check. It could also mean a bad power supply in a sence that its not providing enough power for the drive to boot.

    When the computer boots each device recieve a voltage frome the power supply and if the power supply does not provide enough energy to the device it will not function properly.

    Anyways good luck,
     
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