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Terwilliger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:02 AM
Original message
Computer help, please?
I have a hard drive that was going through a scandisk procedure when the computer reset, and now the drive just clicks and pops when I try to access it. Is there some possibility that I can recover the file system and/or retrieve the data that's on the disk? I've got a few important documents, mainly...the rest I don't care about.

Any help would be appreciated :hi:
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bamademo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:10 AM
Response to Original message
1. What Operating System?
If you can boot to DOS you can save files to floppy. Do you have a system repair disk?
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Terwilliger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:12 AM
Response to Reply #1
2. no
its Win 98...FAT 32

I can boot my computer to a C prompt, but when I Dir the drive, it clicks and pops. I tried booting to the prompt and running scandisk /fix...it won't get that far.
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dweller Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:14 AM
Response to Reply #2
5. have you tried safemode?
to run scandisk?
dp
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Terwilliger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:29 AM
Response to Reply #5
11. yes
no matter what mode I'm in, the drive clicks and pops, and I can't access it
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OrdinaryTa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:13 AM
Response to Original message
3. Hard Drive Failure
Yes, the documents can be recovered but it's probably not worth the money. It's expensive as hell because it has to be done in a clean room environment and it takes a long time. You can't do it yourself.
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liberalnurse Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:19 AM
Response to Reply #3
8. I had that happen to me 4 times.
Replaced the hard drives....turned out my power box would occasionally send a surge and kill it.

Yes, I replaced the power box.
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Terwilliger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:27 AM
Response to Reply #3
10. well, I assumed that something got messed up in the FAT
so there's no hope?
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Kellanved Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:13 AM
Response to Original message
4. Difficult to say from a distance
Depends on what's causing the error;
the worst case is a headcrash; in that case powering on the HDD would cause further damage to the data. Only a professional lab could help you in this case.

Not quite as bad: the Drive Electronic bought it ; no further damage , but you'd need professional help as well.

If you're lucky only the filesystem and/or the configuration is/are shot up. There are several programms on the market to deal with things like that.
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Rainydaze Donating Member (54 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:18 AM
Response to Reply #4
7. If nothing else works...
And the HD, brand is Quantum. Either fireball or bigfoot....You can smack it against a desk. *bottom of the HD to the desk, make sure you hit it flat* Sometimes works long enough to pull your data off. Depends on how important the data is. If vital, go to the Data Doctor.
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slackmaster Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:15 AM
Response to Original message
6. You are probably screwed, blued, and tattooed
If your computer can't mount the drive your only hope is to take it to a data recovery professional, who will charge $100 - $1,500 depending on how much he likes you and thinks he can get away with charging.

Next time back up your data.
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BlueJazz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:24 AM
Response to Original message
9. You might try going into the bios and setting
everything to default but frankly it sure sounds like your drive is screwed.
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OrdinaryTa Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:32 AM
Response to Original message
12. You May Get Lucky
Sometimes a hard drive that won't boot as a master will boot as a slave, giving you the opportunity to retrieve the valuable documents.

Replace the present hard drive with another hard drive configured as a master. Then take the old one and move the jumper over to the slave position, and connect it in the middle of the ribbon belt. Reboot.

No guarantees here. It depends on whether or not you get lucky. Do a little Internet research on hard drive master-slave configuration. The difficult part is grabbing the little jumper.
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Terwilliger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 10:36 AM
Response to Reply #12
13. Thanks, Ta
will changing the M/S configuration affect the file system?
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Terwilliger Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 11:01 AM
Response to Original message
14. Thanks all
I will try the "beat on it" suggestion, and then everything else I can do to reaccess it. If I can't...oh well. Another lesson learned in my computer experiences.

I figured someone here at DU might have had a rabbit to pull out of their hat. I have lettuce!
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Rainydaze Donating Member (54 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Aug-29-03 11:07 AM
Response to Reply #14
15. Beat on it.
Should be the last thing you try. And just once. Not hard. Just firm, like you're dropping school texts on the desk after a hard day.
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