Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
• If it did not recognize the hard drive, I would try to manually input the hard drive settings
(some CMOS's allow this, others make it a bit harder to do).
• Now try to boot without the boot disk.
Assuming that one of the above methods at least got the hard drive recognized, but at boot up
there is some other error regarding the hard drive, I'd stick in the boot disk and boot with it.
Next question is at this point can/does the machine "see" the hard drive. I've had both cases,
some where it did, some where it didn't. If it sees the hard drive, can I see my information? If
yes, can I access the information? Usually one of those two questions is a no. If you can access
the hard drive (the system sees the hard drive, sees your directories) but not access the
information (when you try to enter into a directory or call up a file you get an error message)
chances are you have a messed up FAT table.
• You can try to fdisk /mbr from your boot disk, it will re-write the FAT table.
• Now pull out the boot up disk and try to reboot again. Any luck? If so you may be in
business, if not you're hosed.
From: richarr
This has happened here several times.
• I install the new hard drive, make it a bootable partition, and install the operating system.
• Then place the old drive on the secondary disk position and copy the contents to the new
drive.
• Usually into a folder called OLD DRIVE. This provides a directory tree map for where to place
the files.
• Then after reinstalling all the software, original files can be placed back into the proper place
on the new drive.
Very rarely does this procedure not work for me.
From: KC Freels
• Try putting the drive in another machine. It may come up there.
• Put it in as a second drive and boot from a working drive.
• Try and access it then. Failing that, try using a program like Ghost and image the drive onto
another one. If this works, you're really lucky.
• If the motor is stuck, or the drive isn't spinning right, open the top of the drive (it's dead
anyway) and spin the platters using the spindle.
• Sometimes this will get the drive spinning and usable one last time.
• It will never work again though, so this is a last resort.
From: David Chambers
This is a common situation. And, it has turned out to be a simple resolution (most of the time).
I'm the Network Manager at the San Diego Blood Bank. The non-profit status of our
organization makes purchasing new, up-to-date equipment quite a challenge. Consequently,
the largest percentage of my 220 desktops are legacy 486/66 boxes. Their relative age brings
about hard-drive failures on a monthly basis. I've been able to extract the data from these
drives using a boot disk, and one of two backup methods.
1. Use a portable backup tape drive that runs from the parallel port (Trakker).
