Question Windows Hard drive dying ( PCMech Forums Drives and Storage )
Updated: 2009-06-04 05:20:19 (6) |
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Windows Hard drive dying
Hey guys, I'm back with another problem. (yay right?). Am running two IDE hard drives, primary is the windows drive, and secondary is just storage. ALong with that is a SATA drive, that I assume is just run like another IDE drive, because its not on a RAID array setup. It too is used for storage.
Yesterday, I noticed my computer hang. Today, it did the same thing. Task manager wouldnt close anything and even hung, itself. I did take notice that opening My Computer seemed to be a trigger for most of it. I restarted the PC and got a blue screen error, but did not document it. I had to hard reboot by holding the power button and upon restart, it would never load into windows, just sat at the "logging in" screen after the password to enter windows was entered.
I turn the PC off and unplugged all drives except the windows drive. Upon restarting the machine, I could hear a distinct, unusual sound from the computer, which I am almost sure was the hard drive. It showed me that the boot order had changed? and then I entered BIOS to see why. It was cdrom, HDD, HDD. So I set it to HDD, CDROM, HDD. ALso noticed it wasnt picking up the HDD as primary IDE. That coudl be because teh drive was set to master with slave present and I didnt adjsut the jumper after unplugging the other drive. So I removed the jumper, restarted, and it took me to the windows password prompt and eventually into windows. I scandisk and defragment. Then I add the other IDE drive, scandisk, defragment. And so on with the SATA drive. Now I am back into windows like normal, but something has to have been wrong.
Maybe a cable was loose? I doubt it, these things dont just "get loose". I havent had problems in MONTHS. What scares me is the "suspect" drive is my windows drive. I dont store ANYTHING on it. I do recall seeing the windows install disk so if worse comes to worse, maybe I can just reinstall it on the SATA drive. NO idea. But I am just wondering if this is something to be concerned about and what I should do. I would love to be able to backup the drive, incase it goes out.
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| Answers: Windows Hard drive dying ( PCMech Forums Drives and Storage ) |
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Windows Hard drive dying
You could clone that hard drive with Acronis just in case it does die.
cmichael258
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Windows Hard drive dying
Quote:
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Originally Posted by cmichael258
You could clone that hard drive with Acronis just in case it does die.
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Could you walk me through that? I am not overly computer savvy but I am not computer DUMB either. Such as, I dont need to be told to right click my computer to get to "disk management". LOL
With cloning the drive, would that wipe clean what data is already onto the "2nd drive" c? I would most likely clone it to the SATA drive, which has 74gb worth of data files. (movie backups) They can be replaced though, so no biggy.
mbco2001
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Windows Hard drive dying
Before you do anything, change all the IDE jumpers to "cable select". Then run manufacturer's diagnostics on all your drives.
glc
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Windows Hard drive dying
Quote:
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Originally Posted by glc
Before you do anything, change all the IDE jumpers to "cable select". Then run manufacturer's diagnostics on all your drives.
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Will do that in the morning (since I am reading this at 3am). Should I document anything it finds or does it save it in a log, or does it fix it? Hard drives really arent my forte, I can say that for sure.
mbco2001
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Windows Hard drive dying
If it has errors, you replace the drive.
glc
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Windows Hard drive dying
Ok, without running the diagnostics (because I cant find the cd and have been incredibly busy lately), I have more info. Again I apologize for being unable to run the diagnostics yet, but felt I should include this bit of information while I look for the cd.
Normally, I can burn a Ripped DVD to disc in about 4-5minutes depending on the size. Today, it took 12 minutes, twice, on a different DVD. Before noticing this, I also noticed in my SYSTEM EVENT LOG the following events.
The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume G:.
The hard disk was "transfer mode downgraded" because of excessive transfer errors to the device. So most likely, the transfer mode downgrade and lack of DVD burn speed probably work hand in hand, since all my DVD image files are located on this hard drive.
Oddly enough, the only time it appears is on 5/24 and 5/23. Not today, not yesterday, etc.
I did manage to do a CHECK DISK and DEFRAGMENT all 3 drives in my PC. There have been about 7-8 restarts since I last posted, with no problems. Not sure how this drive would affect the booting since the drive ONLY contains DVD images, NOTHING MORE.
So, here's where I stand. I think the checkdisk may have done some help on the system (since i NEVER do that). But I am thinking I need to re-change the transfer mode on the sata drive back to a state where it burns normally on speedwise.
mbco2001
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