HDD Failure

[rajsaha001]

I have two HDD, one IDE 80gb and a sata 320Gb. In both of them os was loaded but i used the one in 320 gb. Today, when i booted the comp, it was taking 50 times longer time than the usual and the desktop screen even didn't come. so i opened the cabinet and disconnected the 80 gb but then on booting it said boot failure. but when i disconnected the 320 gb and booted with the help of 80 gb i was able to boot up successfully. Does this mean that the 320 gb has crashed? Also iwas hearing somne creaking sound coming from the 320 gb hdd. i need to know immediately. Pls help. if the hdd has crashed then can i recover the data or repair the hdd??????????

 

[Hawkeye22]

It sounds like you had the 80 gig drive installed when you put windows on the 320 gig drive. It's best to only have the drive you want to put the OS installed on installed by itself, otherwise windows will put the boot loader on one drive and the OS on the other. This is why you can't boot without the 80gig drive.

You will need something like EasyBCD to fix/create the boot loader on the 320gig drive.

Next time be sure to only have one drive connected to the computer when installing the OS so that everything is forced onto one drive. You can attach the rest of the drives after windows is done installing.

 

[shabaa]

It sounds like you had the 80 gig drive installed when you put windows on the 320 gig drive. It's best to only have the drive you want to put the OS installed on installed by itself, otherwise windows will put the boot loader on one drive and the OS on the other. This is why you can't boot without the 80gig drive.

You will need something like EasyBCD to fix/create the boot loader on the 320gig drive.

Next time be sure to only have one drive connected to the computer when installing the OS so that everything is forced onto one drive. You can attach the rest of the drives after windows is done installing.

In order to use EASYBCD you have to be able to boot in the first place, as it requires an OS to work.

What OS is on the 320GB drive? Repairs can be done to the viable drive to allow it to boot if done correctly and you have your install disc for the specific drive.

 

[WyomingKnott]

EasyBCD will indeed do it. Or, you could disconnect the smaller drive, boot from the installation media, and do a repair install. The process will notice that there is no boot loader and create one.

To the other point. A hard drive making new noises is always a bad sign. It may not fail, but why take the risk? As soon as you have a running system, back it up to an external device. Don't have one? Go buy one.

PS - you can back it up before you fix the system, if someone with a CD writer will lend you his/her computer. Download Parted Magic and use Clonezilla to "clone" the drive to an image on a new drive or external drive. Should your drive fail, the restored image will be bootable.

 

[shabaa]

What OS is on each drive and which drive is failing?

 

[rajsaha001]

A sound was coming from the 320gb sata. A sound like the lens was jammed or like that. Does a healthy hdd give such sound. I have my hdd in warrany period. So, if u say that such sound can only come from a crashed hdd, then i will send it to the company, otherwise i will try that EasyBCD which can fix the bootloader problem. And for the os both hdd have windows xp installed in one partition. The 320gb is failing but the 80gb can boot with no problem.