First Response

There are many types of hard drive failure or damage that will be exacerbated by your efforts to make the drive work again. Seemingly “little” steps like trying again and again to restart a PC with a damaged drive can actually contribute to the problems.

For example, if you have a damaged drive head and you repeatedly try to access that drive, that bad head may destroy more of the stored data on the drive each time you do so.

Such efforts may distance you from the ability to recover the unsaved data from the drive; the damage to the drive may increase because of your attempts to recover data, making it tougher for special software or drive-recovery specialists to pull your data successfully from that drive.

For this reason, it’s vitally important that you neither panic nor try to bully your way through such a problem. It’s also important that you make a decision early on whether to

  • Scrap the drive and eat the data loss.

  • Try all the measures you can to pull off data yourself.

  • Immediately pack the drive into a plastic bag (if the drive is wet, don’t dry it yourself first) before sending it off to data-recovery specialists.

Why? First, data recovery in such situations is time-consuming and expensive in terms of buying special software. Consumer versions of this software are priced between $50 and $100, but the cost goes up with the software’s level of sophistication; more features or more recovery potential equals a higher price tag.

Second, once you turn to this software, especially if you make multiple attempts to extract data from the drive, you may inadvertently further damage the drive. This can drastically reduce the likelihood that a drive-recovery specialist will be able to recover more data from your drive later. Plan to use the software or a specialist rather than calling in a specialist after the software fails.

If you need more time to consider your decision, leave the PC off or leave the suspect hard drive completely disconnected from it (remove the power connection and data cable).

However, if you have already booted the PC and the drive seems to be working during that session, copy important files off the hard drive however you can. This should be your first priority because you can’t assume that the drive will still be functioning in 20 minutes or in an hour or tomorrow. I’ll go over some emergency backup measures in a moment.

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A Cautionary Tale: Why a Good Swift Kick or Slap Probably Isn’t Going to Help

I keep running into people who believe that the cure for a bad noise in the drive or a drive error is to slap their drive (this really scares me because no one ever mentions the issue of power or grounding oneself) or kick their PC case to “help the disks spin.”

While this worked for the starter mechanism on my ancient college-era Toyota, it won’t help a hard drive work better. At best, this might help you work off your frustration. You’re probably going to hurt at least the drive, if not yourself and the rest of the PC.

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Emergency Backup Schemes

What if you’re in a situation where you feel a drive failure could happen at any moment, but you simply don’t have a means of backing up the drive? I saw this recently with a system that had become too unstable to get through something as disk intensive as a backup; the system died each time someone tried to record files to a CD-R.

In a situation where you have a small number of files you desperately need to save off the hard drive, copy them to a floppy disk or a Zip disk. If you have access to a file compression utility like WinZip or FreeZip, archive up to 1MB of files and send them to yourself in an e-mail; don’t retrieve that e-mail until you come out on the other end of your drive problem. Most web-based e-mail sites allow for file attachments.

If the PC with the failing drive is on a network, move as many important files to a drive on another system where you have access (the drive or folders on the other PC gives you share-level access to save files to them).

Online Backup Services

Online backup services provide you with an account and special software or a browser-based interface for uploading files to their storage servers for an annual fee. The goal of these services isn’t to upload the entire contents of your hard drive but to store strategic files that you can’t afford to lose or that you want stored in a second location accessible through the Internet. Many business travelers subscribe to such services so that if something happens to their laptop while they’re on a trip, they can always log onto the backup service from a borrowed PC or laptop from virtually anywhere and grab the files they need. The following sites provide online backup storage:

@Backup (www.@backup.com)  You download and install their software, which provides an easy-to-use interface for uploading files to their storage servers. Pricing here starts at an annual service fee of $49.95 for 50MB or $995 for 2GB. At the time this book was being prepared for release, @Backup was offering a 30-day free trial with annual signup.

Virtual Backup (www.virtualbackup.com)  Virtual Backup offers a Simple Plan that allows you to store up to 50MB of files at an annual rate of $39.95 or 100MB for $79.95 a year. Like @Backup, they offer a 30-day free trial.

A Quick E-mail Trick

Here’s a quick trick I learned when I was rushing to secure a really important document for work on a drive that sounded like it would grind itself to death at any moment.

If your word processor or other application has a Send To feature on the File menu (Microsoft Word is one program that has it) and you currently have access to the Internet, send a copy of the file to yourself through e-mail directly from the application.

Let’s pretend I’m furiously trying to finish this chapter on a PC where the drive appears to be having problems. Naturally, I don’t want to take the chance of losing the work, so I would take these steps:

  1. Save the most recent version of the file. If that’s not possible, proceed to step 2.

  2. In Word, I choose File Ø Send to Ø Mail Recipient (you can also choose Mail Recipient as Attachment, if preferred).

  3. When my e-mail software opens, I address the file to myself and click Send. (If you used the Mail Recipient as Attachment option in step 2, you’ll have to specify the name and location of the file you want to send.)

  4. Later, once the hard drive crisis is corrected or from another PC, I retrieve my e-mail and my attached file.

Once your important data is saved in a retrievable format, it’s time to start checking the source of the hard drive problem.

Check This First

If the drive is not responding at all, do a quick check of the entire PC, followed by a look at your physical setup. If you can get the drive going, you can perform other checks (using Windows’ disk-checking tools, for example) more easily.

In this process, try not to assume, since you might miss other clues. Here’s a case in point: Someone asked me to come by the other afternoon because he didn’t think his hard drive was working, but he couldn’t get the system working with a startup disk either.

With the case open, I carefully connected power, turned the system on, and listened to the power supply roar to life. But that was all that engaged—there was no video, no sound of the drives engaging, and no fans turning except for the power supply fan. A bad hard drive doesn’t generally kill power and won’t render you without a display. No, his motherboard was dead. The power supply was feeding power to it, but nothing connected to the motherboard, including the CPU and fans, was getting any juice. Even if they were, a fried motherboard wouldn’t let them work.

A test for this can be done easily, assuming you’re reasonably sure your PC components work. Under most conditions, you should be able to boot using a boot or startup disk. If you can’t and you know you’re working with a good boot/startup disk (because it will boot another PC, for example), suspect something other than your hard drive.

Visible Signs

When you have a hard drive that does not appear to respond at all when you turn on the PC, first establish that everything else on the system is working. Can you hear the power supply? Do you see some kind of display? If the entire PC is off (meaning, not even the power supply comes on), you have a power issue. And as I said a moment ago, a dead drive won’t keep you from having a display.

Once you’ve established that the rest of the PC responds as much as it can, look for a drive light. If there is no drive light, the drive is not getting power from the power supply or can’t get power because the drive is dead.

Also, be aware that the drive startup power is coming from the 12-volt section of the power supply. It’s very possible that the 5-volt section is running and the 12-volt section is not. On power up, if the keyboard is scanned (the keyboard LEDs flash) and you do not hear any of the drives start up, you probably have a power supply failure, not a hard drive failure. The keyboard uses only the 5-volt section of the power supply.

Physical Setup

Next check your PC’s physical setup, including all of its connections (from the data ribbon cable to the motherboard and to another drive or from the power supply to the drive) and its jumpers. This is especially important if the problem you’re experiencing is with a new drive. But this step should be done even if the drive formerly worked fine and you haven’t been inside the case recently.

Before you check your PC’s physical setup, remember to

  1. Turn off the PC.

  2. Disconnect the PC’s power.

  3. Remove the cover and don your anti-static wrist strap.

Warning 

If the drive is brand new, did you partition and format it or use the drive’s Setup software to prepare it for use? If it’s a booting hard drive, did you install an operating system? A new drive won’t do much without your help.

Physical Connections

There are two primary physical connections with an IDE/ATA internally mounted hard drive: the connector running from the power supply to connect to the back of the drive and the data ribbon cable connecting the drive to the motherboard (or to another drive or both).

Power Supply Connector  One of the hardest connections to establish in a PC is the plastic connector from the power supply that plugs into the back of the hard drive. This is keyed and must be seated firmly.

However, if you could see a drive light before you checked the physical setup, this is probably properly attached.

Tip 

Have another free power connector available? Remove the current connector and try the other one, just in case it’s a bad connector.

Data Ribbon Cable  The data ribbon cable must be inserted firmly into the connection at the back of the hard drive, with the colored (usually blue or red) edge of the cable lined up to pin 1 on the drive’s data connection.

If at all possible, temporarily replace your current data ribbon cable with another that is known to work. This rules out a bad ribbon cable as the source of your problem.

Jumpers

Be sure the jumpers on your hard drive are set for the way you’re using the drive. The section “Installing an IDE Hard Drive” has more information on jumper settings.

When BIOS Doesn’t See the Drive

Your hard drive is SMARTer than you think, at least in terms of the Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) built into it.

Hard drives now contain detailed information about themselves (type of drive, ID number) contained in programmed chips on the drives, which helps both BIOS and Windows know what type of drive they’re working with. This information makes it easier for the drive to be detected by the BIOS, to be seen as part of the essential hardware inventory when the PC is started. For those of us who remember a time when adding a new hard drive meant an hour or two of complicated debugging commands, this stored drive information makes life much easier.

But damage to the recorded information, as you might see with a power surge, extreme overheating, or when you forget to disconnect the PC’s power before you plug in a new drive, can make it impossible for the BIOS to read these identifying details. BIOS may not even realize a drive is connected at all.

The BIOS may not recognize a new drive when the drive capacity is larger than your BIOS version is designed to support. Some Pentium II and III systems, for example, may have problems when you add a 20GB or larger hard drive simply because their BIOS hasn’t been updated since these systems were first built in 1997–1999. To resolve this problem, do one of the following:

  • Obtain and apply a BIOS update (described in Chapter 8, “When Upgrades Go Wrong”).

  • Use drive/BIOS overlay software (discussed in Chapter 16, “Starting from Scratch the Hard Way”).

Another problem with new drives is improper cable connections and improper jumper settings can keep the BIOS from detecting the hard drive. However, once a drive has been installed and detected, the BIOS should see the drive each and every time your PC starts. If it doesn’t (and outside of some of the disaster conditions such as smoke or a terrible sound from the drive), you should

  1. Restart your PC.

  2. As the PC restarts, follow the on-screen directions to enter BIOS Setup (as in, “Press <this key> to Enter Setup”).

  3. Locate your drive listings (usually on the general information screen).

  4. Click Auto Detect (if available) to see if this picks up the drive.

Also check your manufacturer’s web site for other suggestions for getting the BIOS to recognize the drive. Some web sites have specific settings for the drive that may help get it recognized again if the actual hardware on the drive itself isn’t damaged.

Then you must rule out a loose data ribbon cable or dust interposed between the drive and the ribbon cable interface, or a loose power cable. If no power is getting to the drive, the power light on the drive should remain dark.

Using ScanDisk/CHKDSK

ScanDisk and CHKDSK are Windows utilities for disk checking that have been discussed in earlier chapters. Use them whenever you need to examine a hard drive for problems, following these steps:

  • For ScanDisk (the Thorough option) for Windows 95, 98, Millennium, choose Start Ø Programs Ø Accessories Ø System Tools or switch Windows to a command prompt and type scandisk <drive-letter>:

    click to expand

  • CHKDSK for Windows XP can be run from the Command Console or from the Recovery Console by typing chkdsk <drive-letter>: or chkdsk <drive-letter>: /f to do a check and repair.

If you have problems running ScanDisk (the scan continuously restarts because the drive contents have changed), restart your system with nothing running on the desktop except ScanDisk, or run it from the command prompt rather than from Windows itself.

Manufacturer-Supplied Disk Tools and Diagnostics

If you installed drive-management software when you installed your problematic hard drive or you have a disk from the manufacturer containing a diagnostics tool, run this software to see what it reports. If you have to call the manufacturer for support on the drive, you may be asked to provide the results from the diagnostics testing. The “Troubleshooting Errors and Warnings” section discusses these tools in more detail.

Checking Related Issues

If ScanDisk or CHKDSK fails to report a problem or if you still haven’t reached the point where you can run them, consider some of the issues described in this section.

Tip 

This is another situation when having a spare Internet-ready PC can be a true blessing. Use the second system to check the drive manufacturer’s web site to see if the specific problems or error messages you’re seeing are covered there. If so, follow the site’s recommendations for correcting them.

What Did You Do Last?

Stop and think: What did you do during the last session the drive responded normally? For example, did you

  • Modify drive settings in the BIOS Setup?

  • Install drive software or utilities? (A common culprit is a utility written for a different version of Windows or one using a different file system.)

  • Try unsuccessfully to repartition or reformat your drive?

If available, check the troubleshooting section of any documentation that exists for anything you did install. You might be able to glean from it what went wrong.

In addition, try to reverse whatever you did to see if this rectifies your current problem.

Did It Suffer a Disaster?

Do you know if the hard drive suffered some type of physical disaster? Was the PC on when you lost power in a storm or experienced a power surge (especially if the PC wasn’t protected by a surge suppressor or UPS)? If so, it’s more likely, but not certain, that there has been actual hardware-level damage. The same is true if you tried to connect the drive with the PC turned on.

That damage can be there even if it’s not immediately visible. For example, even if a PC itself does not get touched by a fire, the sheer heat of a fire (not to mention the smoke and water damage) can damage components like a hard drive. This can be true even when the heat doesn’t melt or soften the plastic pieces in and around the PC.

Are You Using Drive-Overlay Software?

Discussed in Chapter 16, drive-overlay software is often packed with new hard drives to allow PCs with slightly older BIOSes to work with that hard drive and recognize its full capacity.

When drive-overlay software is preventing a hard drive from performing, you’ll typically see an on-screen message telling you to insert the recovery or boot disk for that overlay software. This disk is likely one you created when you installed the drive and configured the drive-overlay software.

If your current situation involves error messages that reference that drive-overlay software, check the software’s documentation and/or the manufacturer’s web site for troubleshooting notes (another good use for a spare Internet-ready PC). You need to resolve the drive-overlay issue before you determine whether the hard drive itself is having a problem.

Have You Scanned for Viruses?

If you’re seeing a drive light for the hard drive but it’s not responding or it’s giving you an error message, use a floppy disk-based virus scanner.

Viruses can do a number of nasty disk-based tricks, including overwriting the master boot record (MBR) needed to boot the hard drive (the fix for that is discussed in Chapter 7), deleting core operating system files, and scrambling drive partitions.

How Is Your PC Power Supply?

While this is a long shot, it’s possible that your PC power supply is failing and needs replacement or is underpowered so it doesn’t have enough juice to supply to this drive along with the other components that require power.

A few of the ways I’ve seen my power supplies fail was to watch one or two devices (usually drives) that formerly were powered up fine suddenly receive no power while everything else operated normally. It took changing out the power supply (usually as a last-ditch effort because I couldn’t figure out what else could be responsible) each time before I got power back to everything that needed it.



PC Disaster and Recovery
PC Disaster and Recovery
ISBN: 078214182X
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 140
Authors: Kate J. Chase

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