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2. Use DOS Client and a boot floppy to get the box on the LAN then map a drive with NET USE
and XCOPY the important files to the LAN. Of course, the boot floppy method works for about
75 percent of the failures. If the boot floppy fails, I try using FDISK/mbr to rebuild the Master
Boot Record. This is successful 5-10 percent of the time. Since the user mentioned in the quiz
had messed around with the BIOS, it's possible the settings are wrong and even more probable
that the jumper on the drive is misconfigured because, although the user "didn't do anything,"
that new CD-ROM they installed is on the same controller as the hard drive. The disappointing
part of making a hard drive spin back
to life exists in the 10-15 percent that are actual physical failures that will require depot level
repair to extract any data. A very expensive process.
From: Ron Masters
Hard Drive Dies.
Oh, you've got to love these kinds of situations, don't you?
Well, this may sound strange, but it's worked for me before. (That is, if booting off a floppy still
won't gain you access...and there are strange sounds coming from the drive...)
1. Shut down the power and remove the case cover to gain access to the drive. Remove the
drive from the case, but leave it connected to power and ribbon cable. (If the ribbon connector
cable isn't long enough, attach one that is.)
2. Now, hold the drive in your hands and kick on the power (use an assistant if you'd like). As
soon as the power comes on, twist the hard drive quick and fast in your hands. (Kind of like
steering a car hard right). This sudden "torqueing" is sometimes enough to "break" a drive
free, allowing it to spin...usually for one last time. (Have a Zip or second drive already ready to
gain access to the files.)
3. A slight variation on this (once again with long power and ribbon cables) is to set the drive
down on a flat surface (non-conductive please!) so that it can be "spun" while flat. Why does
this work? Well, in this situation, my guess is that the lubrication of the drive has failed, and
the torque overcomes the initial spin-up of the drive.
From: co
• I would open the box and ensure that all of the connections are still are where they are
supposed to be, including the controller card, if it has one.
• I would ask the client what operating system they were using, so that I cold make a startup
from another box.
• I would try to copy the sys files to the hard drive by booting to the floppy.
• As a last resort, I would consult the Internet.
From: Jim Davison
The symptoms you describe would lead me to believe that the drive lost power or died. Maybe
the Molex power connector worked loose. I would use the following steps even considering that
you state the user had "tried" to manually enter the settings in setup and also tried auto. The
user may not know what they are doing.
1. Try IDE Auto Detect to see if the bios can even see the drive.
If yes, then I would use that setting and everything should be OK.
 
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