Hm, i have a hard drive and for some unknown reason its decided to die...well it is slowly dying.
its about half a year old... and some of my other hard drives are older than that...
what could cause it to fail in such a horrible way.
can i still save it (without the costly repairs)
what happens is ill be doing somthing and it will restart without warning... then it will proceed to tell me that there is a error loading opperating system.
ill power down my rig and then remove the sata plug and replace it back in... then reboot my machine, it then works untill the next crash.
there is no error codes associated with these crashes, just a random reboot.
Full Version: Hard drive failure
The random reboot will likely be a BSOD that doesn't appear.
Disable this automatic restart feature as described in ye holy link.
Wait for it to BSOD again and note the error given.
Does anything different happen if you don't replug the SATA cable before powering on again?
Disable this automatic restart feature as described in ye holy link.
Wait for it to BSOD again and note the error given.
Does anything different happen if you don't replug the SATA cable before powering on again?
sux2bu
If it's only half a year old, back it up and RMA it.
If you are overly concerned about backing up data from the drive, make an Ubuntu live CD (the iso can be found on http://www.ubuntu.com/) and copy the files to an alternate location.
If the drive has already failed, there is a re-mixed version of Ubuntu known as the Ubuntu Rescue Remix (http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/). If you don't want to get out of Windows while doing this, GetBackData is a tool I have had to use a few times and is a good one.
While doing recoveries, remember to have enough free space on another disc to accommodate for the data which is recovered.
If you are overly concerned about backing up data from the drive, make an Ubuntu live CD (the iso can be found on http://www.ubuntu.com/) and copy the files to an alternate location.
If the drive has already failed, there is a re-mixed version of Ubuntu known as the Ubuntu Rescue Remix (http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/). If you don't want to get out of Windows while doing this, GetBackData is a tool I have had to use a few times and is a good one.
While doing recoveries, remember to have enough free space on another disc to accommodate for the data which is recovered.
im actualy tempted to clone the entire drive to a new drive...
save the hassle of format/rebuild
save the hassle of format/rebuild
just go into windows error logs, sometyimes that will tell you if there are bad sectors/I/O errors on the disk, aswell get hirens boot cd and scan thedrive for bad sectors, if errors appear backup data and RMA 
I wouldnt clone a drive with known bad sectors and expect windows to just launch.
Also have you pondered the possibility that its your power supply?
If the drive loses power it might look exactly like it has failed.
Run a seatools test on the drive, preferably in a different PC.
Also have you pondered the possibility that its your power supply?
If the drive loses power it might look exactly like it has failed.
Run a seatools test on the drive, preferably in a different PC.
I love how R4N is normally the one who points out thread revivals, and yet he is participating in one now
It's only a month old, it's not that bad >.>
QUOTE (priorax @ Sep 17 2010, 09:42 PM) 
I love how R4N is normally the one who points out thread revivals, and yet he is participating in one now
Noted.
I am an idiot who didnt check the datestamp.
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