More laptop woes

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I think possibly the hard drive on my laptop is failing.

The other day I turned the laptop on and something internal was really making a racket.
I powered down the laptop.

Upon booting up the next time, I get the Ssfe Mode, LKGC, and Start Windows Normally options.

Safe Mode and LKGC don't allow me to boot into Windows, so I try the Start Windows Normally option and it very slowly boots up.It get's as far as the Windows XP sign and then it goes back to the boot options

Oh, also.When I tried Safe Mode option, a list of files starts to appear at the bottom of the screen, many of them.

As I don't know which file needs recovering, I haven't tried recovery console yet.

So what should I try now?

 

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i think you should put ure poor laptop out of its misery mate.

lol. the racket, does it sound like someone has thrown a heap of grit into the drive?

 

Yeah.

Thing is fergal, the things just over a year old.I wouldn't mind a bit more life out of it, you know what I mean.

Any ideas?

 

sounds like a head crash mate. in which case, your gonna have to install a new drive. sorry mate. if you REALLY need your data, dont power up the machine. there are companies which can recover the data, but they're vastly expensive. if you do need it, then i cant stress how bad it will be if you power it back on. the heads crashing onto the disk will wipe the entire drive of data quite quickly as i recall.

sorry mate
Fergal

 

a head crash would of likely already destroyed your data, or made it inaccessable (unless you were very fortunate)
can you boot to knoppix and view the contents of the disk?
does the noise occur at power up, a few seconds later, or only at certain times

 

A few days ago I powered on the laptop and walked downstairs to egt something.
I only noticed the noise as I returned.I'm pretty sure it happened after it had started up.Can't be certain on that though.

The thing is when it was really noisey, it still booted into XP.
Now it ahs quitened down, though still a bit noisey, nowhere near what it was though.Howeevr, now it won't boot into XP, hmmm

Doh me, totally forgot about knoppix.Will give it a go.

Now where ddi I put my knoppix CD...................

 

the hard disk could indeed be damaged, pay close attention to the noise as you boot into knoppix, as i dont want to add to your data loss

is this laptop not under warranty anymore or something?
id have shipped it back post haste lol

 

Nope, I only had 1 year waranty you live and learn eh.
The companies been acquisitioned as well (Multivision) by some other company, I forget who.

I'll keep an eye on the noise.If it get's too loud, should I power down, or what exactly?

Still looking for Knoppix CD ...........................

 

Check this out.

 

Found the CD.

It gets to 'Welcome to the Knoppix live Linux-on-CD!'

Under that it says:

'Accessing KNOPPIX CDROM at /dev/scd0'

It just hangs there

 

uh oh...

 

thats the prob i got with one of my 80gb disks after the flight over here, and i pretty much wrote that off

if its broken
(i hope you backed up after you got your shiney new hard disk)
all is not lost
you can get another 2.5" laptop hard disk from OC.CO.UK
they have a 40GB for 60 quid
the 60GB is far more pricey at 190 Quid lol
has an 8mb buffer and a 5400RPM speed
pretty standard for a laptop hard disk

 

WHat the hell is up with the recovery console?

I booted with the XP CD and selected R to repair.

Then choose the Windows C: drive to log onto.

Hmm now I've just thought os eomthing.My Windows install was actually on the D drive, witht the C drive being the factory backup or something.
However the D drive isn't an option only C:\Windows shows as a choice.

Anyway I select C by choosing option 1 then it asks for the administrator password.

I've tried my logon password, 'password' and 'adminitsrator' as passwords but it isn't accepting any of them

This happened last time a file went walkabout and I used knoppix to egt arouns it.However this time my knoppix CD isn't booting into llinux, so it isn't an option this time.

What is rc's problem, which flamin password does it want ffs.

is it the password some pilchard chose while setting it up at the factory.In which case I'm knackered.

Help

 

It's a long shot, but is it asking for the BIOS password? Try removing the battery on the MoBo (If you can see/ Get to it) and that might work.


Other than that, I'm not sure at the moment, tryin to kill a hangover. I will think about it. Seem's strange tho, can't see why it would have that in the recovery console.

Just out of interest, is it showing the whole size of your disk as C, or is there a "invisible" partition that you know is there, but can't see? Also, if you got any documentation for the Machine from where you bought it, it might have a default password written in there.

HTH, good luck

Andy

 

1: C\Windows

that's what it shows punkboy101, nothing about the size.

This seems to answer the password dilemma.

However the files it gives you are for 'floppy' setup.

I don't have a floppy drive, argggghhhh

 

Did yopur laptop not come with an interchangable CD/ Floppy drive? If not, you could alway's try something like this, http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=694957&CatId=287 although I'm not sure you would be able to use it, because it probly wouldn't register.

Without soundin too much like ned flanders (hopefully lol), seems like your in a bit of a pickle.

Andy

EDIT: Just thought of something else. Any chance of gettin hold of another similar laptop that your HD will fit into? that way you could use the second machine to rebuild your OS (with the startup disk) and then put back into your original laptop. Just an idea.

HTH

 

I've managed to bootup Windows XP (I'll tell yas all about it alter) but for now I need help quick please.

I've opened the command prompt and switched to the D drive.

Then I've run CHKDSK and it says it's found errors.

Then it says "CHKDSK cannot continue in read-only mode"

So what do I need to do to make it run?

Answers ASAP please.

Edit: Ahh sued the /f paramter seems to have enabled CHKDSK to run on next restart.

 

Nevermind the 'Chronicles of Riddick', how about the 'Chronicles of flex and his cr@p laptop' for an epic.

Anyway, jeez, it's working, phew

I remembered there were two volumes on the drive, C and D.

C was a backup partition, so I decided to install XP on that drive.

During setup it automatically ran CHKDSK and found that segments 20, 21, 22, 23 were unreadable.it corrected these errors and XP ran through the setup.

Once I was in I opened a command prompt and switched to the D drive.
There I ran CHKDSK /f and it told me that it would run CHKDSK next reboot.

I rebooted into the C drive again and it checked volume D and corrected the errors.

I rebooted again and this time booted into the D drive, and I'm there

I'm just starting a backup, but it says it's going to take 10hrs, flippin heck.

How can I get that down?
What would you say are the absolute musts to backup?
I'm thinking OE, system state, preferred files, until I have the time to do a full backup.

The laptop doesn't sound too abd, but as eevr not perfic.

Geez I'm shattered with this thing lol

 

Hey, good work, Flex. Your efforts paid off.

For your home machine, I'd just say back up all your files,pics, mp3s, apps, etc into My Docs, and then just copy that to somewhere safe. I never worry about system state, cos I can usually have Windows to my own preference within about 20-30 min after installing.

IMHO

 

i agree. for a home system, back up only the files/game saves/etc that you want to keep. it may be a bit of a pain in the @ss but its all you REALLY need to keep hold of tbh!

Fergal