Hard Disc Error

dazza

I went to use my computer this morning and the screen was frozen so I shut down using the power button.

Now when I go to power up my computer it won't start. I have an error message advising me that there is a disk error but don't know how to fix this. My computer just keeps rotating around. It reaches the window screen but goes no further. It keeps rotating back to the open in safe windows option screen but won't open in safe mode.

Please help.

primesuspect

Is this Vista or XP? Something else?

Do you have the CD that Windows came on, or a disc from your computer manufacturer?

dazza

I am running XP. I have an XP disc from the computer manufacturer.

primesuspect

Read How to repair Windows XP - not all the steps will apply to you. You need to boot off the CD, get into the recovery console, and then run the CHKDSK /R /F command as the article explains. That alone should be enough to get you back up and running. If not, you have more serious hard drive errors.

Let me know how that goes and we'll go from there.

Thrax

The repair Windows XP guide won't fix the problem.

Allow me to quote one of our articles:

You will need working installation media for Windows XP—a recovery CD will not do—and three CDs prepared with the following utilities:

HitachGST's <a href="http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#DFT&quot; target="_blank">Drive Fitness Test</a> (DFT) CD image
Seagate's <a href="http://download.seagate.com/seatools/registration.nsf/eula/desktop&quot; target="_blank">SeaTools for DOS</a> CD image
<a href="http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.5.iso.zip&quot; target="_blank">Memtest86</a> CD image

To freely burn these utilities to CD, Icrontic has <a href="http://icrontic.com/articles/burn_iso_disc_image_free&quot; target="_blank">prepared a guide</a> to accomplish the task. Once all three CDs are ready, proceed with each of the following steps in sequence. If you uncover a problem at any step, it is imperative that you remedy the issue before moving on. You may also find that resolving an intermediary issue eliminates the 0x0000008E stop error, so be sure to test Windows before continuing with additional steps.
<ol>
<li>Evaluate the condition of your PC's memory by <a href="http://icrontic.com/articles/diagnose_with_memtest86">testing it</a> with Memtest86. If this fails, you need to replace your system memory and continue.</li>
<li>Evaluate the condition of your hard drive by testing it with <a href="http://icrontic.com/articles/hard_drive_diagnostics">Drive Fitness Test</a>. Should DFT fail to correctly function on your system, <a href="http://seagate.custkb.com/seagate/crm/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=201271&quot; target="_blank">perform a long scan</a> with SeaTools. If this fails, you need to replace your hard drive after <a href="http://icrontic.com/articles/easy_data_recovery&quot; target="_blank">archiving your information</a>. If simple archival fails, Icrontic has prepared an <a href="http://icrontic.com/articles/advanced_data_recovery&quot; target="_blank">emergency data recovery</a> guide to account for this issue. Replacing your hard drive will require that you <a href="http://icrontic.com/articles/repair_install_windows_xp&quot; target="_blank">reinstall Windows</a>.</li>

If we've proven that the hardware is good, we'll move on to software issues.

dazza

I have run Memtest86 and my system passed the test. Have tried running Drive Fitness Test but it is failing. About to try the SeaTools. My system does not seem to be recognizing my drive.

lordbean

So the timeline here is...

One evening, you go to bed and leave your PC on, all is well.
Next morning, it's frozen. You power it off and reboot.
It gives you a message that probably says this:
"DISK ERROR - REPLACE DISK AND PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE"
Memtest passes, but drive tools don't.

Suggests your drive probably died at some point overnight. If none of the HD testing tools can properly run tests on the drive, it's probably time to start thinking about RMAing the hard drive, if it's still under warranty (or the PC if you bought it as a full system).

dazza

The main drive that is not responding was a 320GB drive. I also have an 80GB drive installed which will open fine. My system acknowledges that I do infact have two drives installed however when I try to boot the 320GB drive I see the windows screen flash up for a total of 4 seconds and then it just keeps looping back to a screen telling me that there was an error occurred while trying to shut down and do I want to try opening in safe mode etc......

If you think that my hard drive is history then I guess I will look at having to buy an entire new system and try to retrieve what I can from the hard drive.

lordbean

If you've tested the drive with both Seatools and Drive Fitness Test, and neither one could successfully complete, then yes, you'll have to be looking at your options regarding replacement of the drive and/or system. You can also try to reinstall windows, but if the testing tools won't run properly, there isn't much hope for this to work.

Thrax

Indeed, if neither tool will properly test your drive, it looks like your hard disk is bad. You can simply buy a new hard drive of the same kind, install the new hard drive, install Windows on the new hard drive, then buy an external hard drive adapter so you can perform data recovery on the dying HDD.

No need to buy a whole new system.

Nate_LapT

or you could grab a live cd and just copy the data from the 320 to another drive, then RMA that bad drive. I use UBCD4Win works like a charm. It'll boot into windows xp and give you a ton of options.