My hard drive has died :(

[faithx]

Just wanted to tell you all how sad I am. My desktop started booting up really slowly about a week ago and now it won¿t boot off the hard disc at all. The windows event log indicated that I was getting I/O errors and timeouts. Before you ask, no I haven¿t got a backup! I've swapped it over for an old hard drive with Win98 on it, to prove I could boot off that, therefore I assume it must be the hard drive and not the controller. I¿m hoping I can get a new hard drive and restore my basic system on to that, and hopefully be able to access my original hard drive as a slave and be able to salvage something from it !

Wish me luck

[faithx]

Ok, quick update, I¿ve installed XP onto my spare drive and booted from that, I have setup the problem drive as a slave, when I boot the machine it insists on running a CHKDSK on the problem drive. Step 1 (verifying files) completes ok, Step 2 (verifying indexes) completes ok, but it seems to get stuck on step 3 (verifying security descriptors). So I might need help now ! Does it make a difference if the problem drive had been running XP Home with Service Pack 2 applied, but the drive I have just booted off is running XP Professional with no Service Packs applied ?, just clutching at straws ! Whatdya reckon guys ¿ I¿m getting worried now

EDIT: Oooh, it¿s just put out a message saying ¿repairing unreadable security descriptors¿ but oh sh*t, it now says ¿STOP: c000021a unknown hard error ????????

[TygerTyger]

Sounds like a little white flag is starting to be waved....

You might want to try this program. There's much better if you are prepared to shell out, but for free it's really very good.

[faithx]

Is it that obvious TT

Thanks for the link, I gave up on it last night and put it all back together, I'll have another crack at it later, I have more patients in the evenings after a few beers

[TygerTyger]

You have a few beers before doing your midwife job? Bloody hell I bet you don't tell the patients that lol.

"Wassat? Other end you say? Right right, I'm with you love, good idea. Ok face down please darlin'. Hm? Oh yeah course, THAT's the bit I should be workin' on, face up then. Aw look at you, all neat down there, aren't you tidy. Hey can I get a drink here?"

[faithx]

hahaha, you cheeky bugger but you're not wrong, it's a bonus if it's "all neat and tidy"

[TygerTyger]

it's a bonus if it's "all neat and tidy"

You're not wrong either

[kee-lo_]

Wondering if you should install Linux and use something to copy it without it asking too many questions, but if it's NTFS then TT's program should be able to help.

[faithx]

Ok, I've had a beer and I'm ready to start on my "patient"

Yes it is NTFS, so I'll download that and give it a try - thanks

[kee-lo_]

Good luck!

[faithx]

Bad news I downloaded it, ran it, and it¿s come up with ¿Access Violations¿, did a scan for logical drives, got an ¿invalid divide by zero¿ error, for the logical drives it did find, when I do a preview on them, the file names are complete tosh ¿ oh well