Hard Drive issue

[DanF]

Hi all hope you're all well!

I've had a customer calling me because his system won't boot. Windows tries to boot and it restarts while loading Windows. What I've noticed is that the loading bar keeps stopping a lot and then all of a sudden a BSOD appears and restarts immediately. It doesn't work in safe mode and I've tried everythin in BIOS.

Then, seeing I could do nothing on the system itself, I've proceeded with connecting the HDD to a working system, via internal SATA. The system is running Windows 7, and it doesn't load with the HDD connected; so I've connected the hdd externally using a SATA to USB adapter. It took AGES for the hdd to get setup. It gets installed right away but it takes ages to appear in My Computer and in Computer Management.

Computer Management stops responding until it is detected. When it gets detected it tells me that the HDD is not formatted and it needs to be formatted with an option to Format. Upon checking out My Computer and double clicking on the HDD it gets stuck, and it does not open. It does the same sound like it's trying to do something, but it can't.

I've had the same issue long long time ago, but can't remember what I did. My bet is that the hard drive has gone bad. My question is, can I try something else? Secondly, the client does not have any important data, but he asked me if I could backup certain information only if possible. What can I do?

Thanks

Dan.

[NickCat11]

It definitely sounds like the drive is going bad or it has some bad sectors where its getting stuck. Did you give HDTune a try to see if you can get them SMART details off of it or do an error scan? I had something similiar happen last week. I ran HDD Regenerator, it took 7 hours but when it was finished it fixed the bad sectors and allowed me to access the drive with no problem.

[kagman]

I suggest Spinrite... One should have this great piece of software. If the hard drive has a bad section or if the ECC is not correcting files as it writes the data to the drive then this might help.. Get it at grc.com. Now its 90 dollars but it can help out. Depending on the damage on the hard drive the scan will take hours upon hours.

Thats just my advice. I'm sure that others here will have some great advice or other software suggestions for you.. Good luck

--Jose--

[DanF]

Applications won't even run if the drive is connected. Even if it's not plugged into the wall lol, strange huh. So I can't use HD Tune or anything unless it decides to show up.

I'll try a new HDD on the customer's system just to make sure it's actually the HDD that's messing up everything.

EDIT: Actually I've managed to get HD Tune to start testing. It showed up all of a sudden.

[NickCat11]

Originally Posted by DanF

EDIT: Actually I've managed to get HD Tune to start testing. It showed up all of a sudden.

Is there any external noises (clicking, etc)?

[kagman]

Best to use a program that boots up within its own environment bypassing windows or what ever OS is installed on the computer.


--Jose--

[DanF]

Yes, that's why I think it's going bad. To be honest, it clicks most of the time, on and off, on and off. But it's not doing it while HD Tune is running. So far no errors detected

Originally Posted by NickCat11

Is there any external noises (clicking, etc)?

[DanF]

Can you recommend any specific one? Thanks.

Originally Posted by kagman

Best to use a program that boots up within its own environment bypassing windows or what ever OS is installed on the computer.


--Jose--

[HubCityPC]

Originally Posted by DanF

Can you recommend any specific one? Thanks.

As mentioned earlier, Spinrite. You boot to it from CD, a thumb drive or even a floppy.

Also try MHHD.

Kevin

[othersteve]

Just a bit of personal advice: be sure to create a full image of the drive before running SpinRite. As it sounds as though this particular drive is mechanically failing, it's quite possible that SpinRite could kill it completely once it's run.