[dba-Tech] Almost dead hard disk

Steve,

If you have an external enclosure, use it to back up all the data. I
believe the second small partition is used by windows for dual booting
purposes even if you don't dual boot. Sounds like the drive may be going
bad. I wouldn't risk using the drive when new HD's are so cheap.

Scott Marcus

-----Original Message-----
From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Steve Erbach
Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 1:53 PM
To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
Subject: [dba-Tech] Almost dead hard disk

Dear Group,

I've dealt with a fair number of dying hard disks over the years, but
this one behaves differently.

It's a 20GB drive from a Gateway PC, vintage 2001 or so.  It's loaded
with Windows XP -- only 128 MB of RAM, though -- and it's pretty slow.
 But that isn't the problem.

The problem comes when it starts.  The POST will not appear on-screen
and the system hangs.  No drive activity.

I plugged it into another system as a slave drive on an add-on IDE
controller.  When I turn on the system I get just so far in the
Windows start up sequence and it hangs.  When I disconnect the drive,
everything's fine.

I booted up the second system with my copy of Gibson's Spin Rite 6 and
ran a level 4 routine on the drive.  Apparently the drive is segmented
into two pieces, one 20 GB, and the other maybe a few megabytes.  The
20 GB drive sailed right through Spin Rite's tests, but when testing
began on that second small partition, Spin Rite hung.  The screens in
Spin Rite still worked, I could flip back and forth between the
different screens; but I could not Esc out and terminate.  The Spin
Rite menus would co-operate with my keystrokes, but cancelling the
session simply had no effect.  I could not terminate Spin Rite's tests
in mid-stream.

So, it looks like the second partition is hosed in some way and that
affects the hardware's ability to boot the PC normally.  Any of you
have any ideas?  I have not yet tried fdisk to erase that small
partition.  That's my next step.

--
Regards,

Steve Erbach
Scientific Marketing
Neenah, WI
www.swerbach.com
Security Page: www.swerbach.com/security
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