Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
• I have even frozen a few drives to less than 40 degrees below zero. This will sometimes allow
them to spin for long enough to get some data from the drive.
From: Avraham Schkloven
Firstly, I check all my cables (data, electric). Is the disk spinning does it make those little
noses at startup? If NOT, I try a little tap with the back of a screwdriver. If it comes to life and
boots, I make backups and replace the disk. If not, well all disks die—it's just a matter of
when. If the disk is spinning at startup:
Be aware that many older viruses effect the boot sector and fats of hard drives and give errors
"invalid drive specification." a good DOS antivirus should be used. Then I try to reset the setup
to the proper numbers and boot from a floppy disk with the proper operating system. On this
disk is FDISK. I personally use a program called
R Studio
. It has saved my skin many times in
rebuilding the boot sector and fats (one could try the FDISK /MBR command). Norton DISK
EDITOR for DOS fits on a floppy and once you boot from a floppy you use it to dump the
content of the C drive off to another drive. If available I use a new hard drive. Making the bad
drive the slave and the new drive master and try dumping the disk. This works only after
access has been restored. Unfortunately, some patients do not survive.
From: KrisMHorn
At times, the hard drive has lost its Master Boot Record (MBR). Sometimes it will work to type
fdisk/mbr at the dos prompt (usually from a system bootable floppy). Other times, you may
want to use the old handy command, SYS a: c: (Re-creating the system files on the C drive).
Usually, if these don't work, your drive can be sent to a data recovery center (if the data is just
so critical that they can't live without it.) Usually, this costs hundreds of dollars.... And you
would still have to replace the hard drive in order to obtain the data back from the recovery
center.
From: David Crocker
• I always start by booting from a floppy and seeing if I can access data on the failed hard
drive.
• If you can, I then do a sys.com to c: and reboot.
• Once you are back to a c prompt, back up all the crucial data and start over by installing a
new hard drive.
• Since this does not always work, more drastic measures have to be taken. I use several
different utilities that may be useful.
• If dealing with a windows operating system, I first try scandisk. Obviously if you cannot see
the c: prompt, then this does not work.
• I would use Norton's Disk Doctor first, then would try using
Spindoctor
.
• I only use this program as a last resort because I have lost the drive in some rare instances.
• Your data is usually still on the failed drive, the problem is the boot sector.
• If these programs do not work to restore the boot sector then, I would try and use
Drivecopy
to get the data to a good drive and start from there.
• As we all know sometimes all your best efforts are in vain. Good luck with your test drive.
