hard drive dead?
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From: jinxy on 8 Mar 2010 17:35 Hello, I am trying to help someone at work to fix his son's pc. It is a HP Media Center m7360n. When he tries to start it up it goes to the 4 options screen (safemode, safemode with networking, last known good conf. that worked and start windows normally) The 30 sec. countdown starts,when you make a selection the countdown stops and nothing happens. If you choose safemode it begins the process and stops before the first screen of drivers loads. It sounds as if the drive is not running, Is this an indication that the drive is dead or dying? Thanks for your time and efforts. -J
From: Sjouke Burry on 8 Mar 2010 17:59 jinxy wrote: > Hello, I am trying to help someone at work to fix his son's pc. It is > a HP Media Center m7360n. When he tries to start it up it goes to the > 4 options screen (safemode, safemode with networking, last known good > conf. that worked and start windows normally) The 30 sec. countdown > starts,when you make a selection the countdown stops and nothing > happens. If you choose safemode it begins the process and stops before > the first screen of drivers loads. It sounds as if the drive is not > running, Is this an indication that the drive is dead or dying? Thanks > for your time and efforts. -J The drive is at least able to show you the first screen, and so is at least working a little bit. Try a win repair install, or a factory re-install, depending on whats on the system disk, or CD's.
From: TVeblen on 8 Mar 2010 18:16 On 3/8/2010 5:35 PM, jinxy wrote: > Hello, I am trying to help someone at work to fix his son's pc. It is > a HP Media Center m7360n. When he tries to start it up it goes to the > 4 options screen (safemode, safemode with networking, last known good > conf. that worked and start windows normally) The 30 sec. countdown > starts,when you make a selection the countdown stops and nothing > happens. If you choose safemode it begins the process and stops before > the first screen of drivers loads. It sounds as if the drive is not > running, Is this an indication that the drive is dead or dying? Thanks > for your time and efforts. -J A system that gets past the POST and begins to load the OS before it freezes usually has a hardware defect or driver problem. The way you diagnose this is to disconnect or disable all but the essential parts (Motherboard, Memory, CPU, Video Card, Hard Drive and Power Supply) and see if it boots. If it does, then you can add back one item at a time until you find the one that hoses the system. If it does not boot with just the essentials you will need to do more advanced diagnoses. Post back if that is the case. The drive could be going bad also, but you need to eliminate other possibilities first before you go there.
From: jinxy on 8 Mar 2010 20:47 On Mar 8, 6:16 pm, TVeblen <Killtherob...(a)hal.net> wrote: > On 3/8/2010 5:35 PM, jinxy wrote: > > > Hello, I am trying to help someone at work to fix his son's pc. It is > > a HP Media Center m7360n. When he tries to start it up it goes to the > > 4 options screen (safemode, safemode with networking, last known good > > conf. that worked and start windows normally) The 30 sec. countdown > > starts,when you make a selection the countdown stops and nothing > > happens. If you choose safemode it begins the process and stops before > > the first screen of drivers loads. It sounds as if the drive is not > > running, Is this an indication that the drive is dead or dying? Thanks > > for your time and efforts. -J > > A system that gets past the POST and begins to load the OS before it > freezes usually has a hardware defect or driver problem. > The way you diagnose this is to disconnect or disable all but the > essential parts (Motherboard, Memory, CPU, Video Card, Hard Drive and > Power Supply) and see if it boots. If it does, then you can add back one > item at a time until you find the one that hoses the system. > If it does not boot with just the essentials you will need to do more > advanced diagnoses. Post back if that is the case. > The drive could be going bad also, but you need to eliminate other > possibilities first before you go there. The way you diagnose this is to disconnect or disable all but the > essential parts (Motherboard, Memory, CPU, Video Card, Hard Drive and > Power Supply) and see if it boots. If it does, then you can add back one > item at a time until you find the one that hoses the system. Tried that, all works fine untill you get to the hdd. Have also changed the sata cable on the drive, still no joy. Man this is a really compacted tower, everything is tight in there, not much room to work. I will ask him if they have recovery disks that came with the pc. I will do a non-destructive recovery if he has the disks. While I am waiting I will take the drive out and slave it to another pc. -J
From: Paul on 8 Mar 2010 21:32
jinxy wrote: > On Mar 8, 6:16 pm, TVeblen <Killtherob...(a)hal.net> wrote: >> On 3/8/2010 5:35 PM, jinxy wrote: >> >>> Hello, I am trying to help someone at work to fix his son's pc. It is >>> a HP Media Center m7360n. When he tries to start it up it goes to the >>> 4 options screen (safemode, safemode with networking, last known good >>> conf. that worked and start windows normally) The 30 sec. countdown >>> starts,when you make a selection the countdown stops and nothing >>> happens. If you choose safemode it begins the process and stops before >>> the first screen of drivers loads. It sounds as if the drive is not >>> running, Is this an indication that the drive is dead or dying? Thanks >>> for your time and efforts. -J >> A system that gets past the POST and begins to load the OS before it >> freezes usually has a hardware defect or driver problem. >> The way you diagnose this is to disconnect or disable all but the >> essential parts (Motherboard, Memory, CPU, Video Card, Hard Drive and >> Power Supply) and see if it boots. If it does, then you can add back one >> item at a time until you find the one that hoses the system. >> If it does not boot with just the essentials you will need to do more >> advanced diagnoses. Post back if that is the case. >> The drive could be going bad also, but you need to eliminate other >> possibilities first before you go there. > > > > The way you diagnose this is to disconnect or disable all but the >> essential parts (Motherboard, Memory, CPU, Video Card, Hard Drive and >> Power Supply) and see if it boots. If it does, then you can add back one >> item at a time until you find the one that hoses the system. > > Tried that, all works fine untill you get to the hdd. Have also > changed the sata cable on the drive, still no joy. Man this is a > really compacted tower, everything is tight in there, not much room to > work. I will ask him if they have recovery disks that came with the > pc. > I will do a non-destructive recovery if he has the disks. While I am > waiting I will take the drive out and slave it to another pc. > -J I'd boot a Linux Live CD, and try to copy the old disk to a new disk. The "dd" command can do this in one shot. All it requires, is the new disk be slightly bigger than the old disk. Since the "dd" command does a sector by sector copy, it places the least stress on a failing disk. The Linux Live CD, doesn't install any software. It only requires the CD/DVD drive be in working order. I can use such a CD as a test of the computer hardware. If the CD won't boot to completion, I could then start disconnecting other hardware bits and pieces, and look for a change in symptoms. Examples of Linux Live CDs, are Knoppix (knopper.net) and Ubuntu (ubuntu.com). If the disk is damaged (has bad sectors), there is a procedure for that. The "ddrescue" at the bottom of this page, has the ability to skip over sectors that cannot be read, and preserves the maximum amount of information from the original disk. (The regular "dd" would run slowly, or fail completely, on a disk with errors on it.) Once you've made your best copy of the drive, you can then attempt data recovery, run chkdsk or whatever, on the *copy* you've made. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Damaged_Hard_Disk The only thing that techniques like that can't help with, is environments that use an HPA. I think perhaps Dell Mediadirect might be an example. There is some box, that hides one of their pieces of software, in a normally inaccessible place. If working on a hard disk set up that way, you need to find a web site specific to the situation. This site, for example, has info useful to people working on certain Dell boxes. http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/recover.htm The hard drive manufacturer may provide a utility for testing the disk. On Seagate, I use Seatools for DOS, downloaded from their web site. That gives me a bootable floppy diskette, which can test Seagate drives. Some disk manufacturers, provide no help whatsoever. It comes as a shock, when you visit such a manufacturer web site, and there is nothing you can use for testing. So if I was visiting a friend's house, I'd probably bring along three of my spare hard drives with me. Just in case. And my stack of Linux CDs. And Windows installer CD, so I'd have a Recovery Console to work with. While I've never bothered to download this, this recovery disc can be used to work on Win7 systems, but can apparently also be used to work on things like WinXP. http://neosmart.net/blog/2009/windows-7-system-repair-discs/ So there are plenty of things you can boot with, to do work on a computer. Paul |