[monkeymedia]

Initially this started off as a windows problem but now i am thinking that the hard drive is dead / dying.

Here is a list of what has been done so far.

1. hal.dll missing or corrupt - new copy of file installed and windows boots up

2. Windows painfully slow to boot, cannot get explorer, task manager only has programs tab, even desktop icons not shown properly

3. Decide to opt for fresh windows install.

4. When copying existing data across to other drive i encoutered a number of CRC errors, this started me thinking that there may be a physical problem with the drive.

5. Tryed fresh install of windows, error message stating that windows cannot format the drive. (always stops at 6%)

6. Put drive into another PC, tryed to format using tools in comp. management also cannot format drive, again cannot get past 6%

7. Try booting with killdisk and performing format of drive with all zeros - same problem again, stops at 6%

8. Downloaded Seatools and ran full diagnostics on drive - 6 bad sectors found (around the 6% complete mark), none could be replaced.


I am planning on running memtest tonight however the test provided within seatools came out fine.

I think the drive is dead however i dont know if there is anything that can be done to save it as it is most likely a physical problem with the disk.

Anything else i should do before buying a new drive?


Thanks in advance for the help

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Formatting failure definitely points to a drive which is of no further use, and especially since it won't format on two different machines.

[pip22]

Formatting failure definitely points to a drive which is of no further use, and especially since it won't format on two different machines.

[jackdw]

I had a problem with one drive once. Gave me a blue screen every time it was accessed EXCEPT in Suse Linux 10.1.
I'm not a Linux user but it saved some data for me.

Try and get hold of Linux and backup your things through there. Then format the disk to FAT. Then try the windows installation.

[HPDV8315LOVER]

Try using FDISK. Then, restart your computer and format your hard drive thru MS-DOS mode.

[stucuk]

Hi,

What make of hard disc is it? If you can find out most of the major suppliers have test programs for their drives. If you can get to another PC and get on their website, find and download then run them they will create a bootable floppy with the diagnostic toolkit on them.