"Click, whirrrr" = "Aw, crap!" + "HELP!"

[VulcanSoulPatch]

Last night I went to use my computer, and when it got to the Windows start logo, I hear this nifty little "Click, whirrrrr . . . Click, whirrrrrr . . . ", etc. The HDD light stayed on while this was going on.

First thought in my head? "Aw, <b>CRAP</b>!!!" My life ('s work) was flashing before my eyes. My hard drive was diving on me and I was about to s**t bricks. Looked like my Maxtor 6.4GB Quantum FireBall was finally biting the dust, after 3 years of use. I say finally, because the first one that came with the system died after 2 months. This moment was inevitable, in my book. That's why I am in the process of getting a new HDD. Guess I didn't act quickly enough.

I let it sit for a minute, then got my boot disk and rebooted. Turns out that my whole hard drive isn't toast, just the Windows directory. I still have access to My Documents and Program Files through DOS. <wipe brow> I can also access my CD-ROM and CD-RW drives through DOS.

<font color=red>Does anybody know how I can get my files off of my HDD before I try to resurrect it?</font color=red> If I can do this, then the only info I will truly lose are the files I had in the folders on my Desktop. Like I mentioned, with my boot disk I still have access to my CD-RW. Also, my internal Zip is listed during boot, but I can't seem to access it.

<font color=red>Is it possible to burn to my CD-RW in DOS mode?</font color=red> I have an HP CD Writer 9100+. Is there a DOS driver for this, or a program I can use to burn to it?

<font color=red>How about copying to Zip?</font color=red> I have both an internal and an external (parallel), is there a way to get them recognized in DOS mode so I can just copy files over?

<font color=red>Any other methods?</font color=red> I might be able to copy files to my wife's laptop, but I am not exactly sure what program I would need to do it.

Please advise.

VSP

P.S.: Sorry for all of the <font color=red>red</font color=red>, but that is what I am seeing right now.

<i>Thoughts are thinking; Thunk from knowing
<b>nwod</b> gniog em peek reverof sthguohT</i>

 

[Spdy_Gonzales]

Why don't you try reinstalling windows over itself...and then do the backups?

"If it weren't for the last minute, alot of things wouldn't get done"

 

[Spdy_Gonzales]

Before reinstalling windows run scandisk to eliminate bad sectors, etc.

To access the Iomega zip drive in DOS mode you need to run the program guest.exe which most likely is located at c:\progra~1\iomega\tools\guest.exe.

"If it weren't for the last minute, alot of things wouldn't get done"

 

[VulcanSoulPatch]

To access the Iomega zip drive in DOS mode you need to run the program guest.exe which most likely is located at c:\progra~1\iomega\tools\guest.exe.

Argh. I was using the Win98 native drivers for the Zip drive. I had ioware sitting on my desktop, but never loaded it.

I tried to locate the file here at work where I have my external, and there is no Guest.exe file, nor a Tools dir. I think I have the latest ioware. I will check their site to see if they have Guest by itself, or some other tool download.

Thanks for the info, <b>Spdy</b> . . . anybody else have any good ideas?

<font color=red>Q: Do think the data that I can currently access is safe and will not "disappear" should Scandisk freeze or some other further tragedy occur?</font color=red> Future drive use is secondary at this point . . . all I care about are the files. (<i>Yeah?!? So why didn't you archive? Bonehead!</i>) Like I said, I will be getting a new drive within a week or so.

VSP

<i>Thoughts are thinking; Thunk from knowing
<b>nwod</b> gniog em peek reverof sthguohT</i>

 

[Flyboy]

If I can do this, then the only info I will truly lose are the files I had in the folders on my Desktop.

Why can't you recover the files from the desktop in DOS? Just type:

>c:
>cd Windows
>cd Desktop
>dir /w

 

[Toejam31]

He may not be able to access the Windows directory in DOS if it no longer exists.

Toejam31

<font color=red>My Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=6847" target="_new"><font color=green>Toejam31's Tantalizing Tantric Toy</font color=green></A>
<font color=red>Second Rig:</font color=red> <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=15942" target="_new"><font color=green>Toey's Dynamite DDR Duron</font color=green></A>
____________________________________________________________

<font color=purple>"Procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."</font color=purple>

 

[Flyboy]

Oh yeah! Durrrrr! Good point! *doing the hand to chest durr-motion*

 

[VulcanSoulPatch]

<b>Toey</b>'s right . . . a DIR command in Windows directory results in a "Disk Read Error". I tried to just CD Desktop without DIR'ing, but got a DRE also.

BTW, <b>Toe</b>, I wasn't able to use the Guest driver that you directed me to last night. <i>(<b>Spdy</b>, thanks for the heads up . . . <b>Toejam</b> PM'd the link to me before I had a chance to look for it.)</i> I may have to wait for the weekend to try it, which is <b>KILLING</b> me! I want to see if it will work and if I can get my stuff off before SCANDISKing.

OQQ: <font color=red>Will creating a boot disk (sys a from any computer work on mine (hopefully), or does it need to be made on a Win98 machine?</font color=red> The boot disk I have already has too much stuff on it (CD Drivers) that I can not fit the Guest drivers on it also. If I get some "free time" (yeah, right!), I can create one on my Win95 machine at work, or my wife's Win2K laptop, and compare what files are on the BD and keep just those from my Win98 BD and make a new one with the Guest drivers . . . does that sound plausible, or am I making way too much work for myself?

OK, back to work . . . I can see my boss raising the guillotine as I type.

Thanks again for the help.

VSP

<i>Thoughts are thinking; Thunk from knowing
<b>nwod</b> gniog em peek reverof sthguohT</i>

 

[camieabz]

I don't suppose you've tried "CD\Windows\Desktop" just for good measure or even "copy Windows\Desktop *.* destination"?

Its always worth a try. Be persistant. I found there sometimes is a way through. Perhaps a boot disk based Scandisk might fix enough, so you can get access.

<b><font color=blue>The Cisco Kid</font color=blue></b>

 

[VulcanSoulPatch]

I don't suppose you've tried "CD\Windows\Desktop" just for good measure or even "copy Windows\Desktop *.* destination"?

No, haven't tried that, but I will put it on my list.

Once I found out that I could not access the Windows dir, I decided to stop trying until I could get everything else safe. Sure, that may sound a little silly, but there is a lot of crap on there that I can currently access that I don't want to suddenly not be able to.

I haven't turned it on since Monday night, waiting until I can do the whole retrieval at once. If the disk has a read error on one part, it could feasibly develop errors in other parts, too. I would hate to turn it on the next time and find that I can no longer access My Documents. If that occurs, I am going to have to warm up the scanner and OCR software at work and start putting all of my valuable info back in. Heh, that would suck.

I will definitely run SCANDISK as soon as I get my stuff off. I would hate for it to "die in the OR". Gonna pump it for info while it is still in the ambulance.

Thanks for the info, <b>camieabz</b>. If anybody has any other ideas, keep 'em comin'. I will let you know as soon as I make progress.

VSP

<i>Thoughts are thinking; Thunk from knowing
<b>nwod</b> gniog em peek reverof sthguohT</i>

 

[VulcanSoulPatch]

I was finally able to get the Iomega Guest drivers to work, so I was able to backup a lot of my data (from My Documents and multiple savegames) to Zip disks. Unfortunately, the data I had sitting on my desktop is still unaccessible.

I was then comfortable enough to run SCANDISK on my drive to see if it could fix it. It fixed the FAT (replaced copy 2 with copy 1) and started to check the directories. It stopped at 6% with the good ol' "click, whirrrrr". After 10 clicks, a message came up telling me "Error reading cluster 259060" and to make sure I run surface scan on the drive. I never got to that point. It was unable to read the next cluster, and I even left the computer for about 10 mins. Looks like the drive is toast for sure. :frown:

Well, at least I had a new HDD on my list since before this occurred. I guess I will wait to get it, then put this one in line as slave, and copy whatever else I need then. Then I will try to reformat and see if I should keep this POS or trash it.

<font color=red>Anybody have any ideas on any other repairs I can try now, before I get the new HDD?</font color=red>

Again, I want to thank <b>Spdy</b> and <b>Toejam</b> for their help.

VSP

<i>Thoughts are thinking; Thunk from knowing
<b>nwod</b> gniog em peek reverof sthguohT</i>

 

[xazos79]

Don't know if anyone's mentioned this but....take the h/d out of your system and connect it as a slave to a friends machine. Then either a) Run scandisk first and then copy your data to your friends hard drive or b) skip the scandisk option and go straight for the copying.

 

[VulcanSoulPatch]

Yeah, <b>xazos79</b>, I had already thought of that, but I did not have another computer that I could do this with. That's why I wanted to use the Zip drive, and the Guest drivers allowed me to do just that. I have almost everything I want off of the drive, except I can't get SCANDISK to fix the drive. I know the drive is toast <i>(unless someone else has a really good idea on how to get it fixed)</i>, so I am going to order a new HDD this week and hopefully get it up and running by March. It sucks to have to wait that long!
Grrr . . . argh!

VSP

<i>Thoughts are thinking; Thunk from knowing
<b>nwod</b> gniog em peek reverof sthguohT</i>

 

[Spdy_Gonzales]

So get ye down to your local CompUSA store (or whatever is generic in your area) and see what kind of deals they got...and bring it home today.

"If it weren't for the last minute, alot of things wouldn't get done"

 

[CALV]

Had a job once similar to this, ended up using ghost, the later versions have an option to ignore read errors/bad sectors, this may or may not work, it worked for me.

If they squeeze olives to get olive oil, how do they get baby oil?

 

[VulcanSoulPatch]

Heh heh . . . it's funny to read this now. I thought my world was coming to an end. Turns out I can live without my computer for while. Why? Just got the parts to fix it Thursday. Turns out my frugality outweighs my need to blast aliens to smithereens.

Interesting thing that I forgot to mention before. The house I am renting was built around the '60s (maybe earlier). The house was built on a two-wire systems; i.e., no ground. Well, the landlord finally had an electrician come in to ground certain rooms in the house. This was mainly because the stove he put in before I moved in died. The sparking module failed, and the repairman stated it was because the house was not grounded.

The landlord decided to be nice to me and ground the room that we are using as an office. He told me that when the electrician was hooking up the ground wire to the grounding rod, he received a shock. He checked the receptacle, and <b>all three lights on his outlet circuit tester came on!</b>

This may be why my hard drive ate it. I believe <b>Toejam</b> mentioned before that a bad PSU can destroy components in a system. Well, what would happen if an old PSU allowed bad wiring to affect the components?

Does anybody know why the tester would come up with three lights? Does this sound like something that could have made my HDD develop bad sectors, or was it just its time to go?

BTW, I will be putting everything together next weekend and starting from scratch with loading all of my software and devices. I can't wait!!! :tongue: It will probably take me about 12 hours or so, and that not including the modifying I have to do prior to installation to make sure that my new setup won't overheat like last summer when it froze during Max Payne.

VSP

<i>Upon the occasion in which the defecation comes into contact with the oscillating ventilator.</i>

 

[VulcanSoulPatch]

I finally got the chance yesterday to start working on my computer . . . and you guys are not going to believe this . . . (or maybe you will):

<b><font color=blue>The warranty period expired 12/2001!!!</font color=blue></b>

<b>Son of a b!+¢h!!!</b>

I read the label on the HDD when I pulled it out . . . mfd on 9/19/98, and right below that, "War end 1201". D'OH! If it had only happened two months earlier, I may have had some recourse. Oh, well . . . <i>ç'est la vie.</i>

Oh, and does anybody have any thoughts about what I mentioned in my last post, the electrical wiring deal? Still curious to know if it was just bad luck all happening at once, or something that was culminating due to a uncorrected problem.

VSP

<i>Upon the occasion in which the defecation comes into contact with the oscillating ventilator.</i>