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Clicking Hard Drive


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#1
maklilly

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I have been cleaning my computer with the help of "hammerman" and the computer was working beautifully. We were at the end of cleaning out some "remnants" when my screen went black and had a PXE error. I have changed the boot order and several other things, but nothing. Now there is a clicking noise. I assume my hard drive is finished. Unfortunately, due to the virus attack, I was unable to back up my pictures or anything else. Is there anyway I can still save this information?
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#2
rshaffer61

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The clicking noise you are hearing is commonly called The Click of Death
It is telling you the drive is going to fail. The procedure at this point is very important that you follow it step by step to try and save the information you want. Please do the following on the system you are using now to get the program and burn the requested cd. Then take it to your system and make sure you change the boot order in the bios to boot to the cdrom first. Once that is done save the settings normally by clicking F10 to save and exit. You will be prompted to click Y to verify and then the system will reboot. The cd needs to be in the drive before you do this so that the system will boot to it on the reboot.


Get Puppy Linux...Get puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso download it and burn it to cd
..
if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files get Burncdcc from my signature...it is a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the ISO file you want to burn on cd/dvd ....in this case its memtest86.iso
3. Select the ISO file
4. click on Start

make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....

put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....puppy will boot and run totally in ram...if your hardware is is good working order you will know...
after you get it running and your at the desktop...you take the puppy linux cd out and then you can use the burner to copy all your data to cd/dvds
you can also use it to backup your data to a external usb harddrive..just have it hooked to the computer when you boot up with puppy...

==========================
quick guide for saving data...music..files on a system that will not boot using puppy Linux..


after you get to puppy desktop..
click on the drives icon...looks like a flash drive...top row..it will list all the drives connected to

your computer...

click on the red icon for the drive you want to mount...in this case its a flash drive ...puppy will

mount the drive..the drive icon turns green when its mounted...
minimize the drives mounter window..you will need it again in a few minutes..
drag the right edge of it sideways to shrink it to its narrowest size...about half the width of the screen...then drag the window to the right edge of the screen...

now click on the icon that looks like a filing cabinet (kind of yellow) on the main drive...it should
already be green..
you will see a list of all the folders on the main drive Usually your C: drive..shrink that window to
the narrowest you can..about half the width of the screen...drag that window to the left side of the screen...
at this point you should have 2 windows open on your desktop..the flash drive on the right side..
go back to the folders on the C: drive...click on the documents and settings folder...then your user
name or all users..find the folders that has your data..
drag and drop the folder with the data you want to make copies of to the flash drive window...

your options are to move ..copy ect...JUST COPY..if its to big you will have to open the folder and
drag and drop individual files until the flash drive is full...(I have a 120 GB external USB drive for
big data recovery jobs and a 4 GB flash drive for the smaller jobs)..after you get the files copied to
the flash drive...
Click on the drives mounter you minimized earlier
UNMOUNT THE FLASH DRIVE by clicking on the green icon..you will once in awhile get error messages when
unmouting the drive..ignore them..when the flash drive icon turns red again its safe to remove the
flash drive..trot on over (stroll if you want to look cool) to another computer and plug in the flash

drive and copy all the data files ( I drag and drop) to the other computer..
make sure the other computer can read them...

now delete the data on the flash drive...take it back to the misbehaving computer and plug it in

again..click on the drives icon again and repeat until you have all your data transferred to the working
system..

Thanks to happyrock
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#3
maklilly

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I did the tasks you requested. I have inserted the cd in the malfunctioning computer. It has stalled at a page that says uncompressing linux . . . ok, booting the kernel. What do I do now?
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#4
rshaffer61

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It may take a few minutes for it to finally bootup.
If it doesn't reboot and it should go through then. The first time I tried it on my system a few months ago it did the same thing.
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#5
maklilly

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It just not working. It has remained at the page mentioned for quite a while. Should I do anything else?
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#6
rshaffer61

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Did you reboot?
Still not working then?
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#7
maklilly

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Yes, nothing.
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#8
rshaffer61

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Ok then there is a problem because the program only takes about 2 to 3 minutes to normally start the first time.
There are several linux live cd's we can try but I hate to have you burn them if oyu are not using a rewritable cd to do it.
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#9
maklilly

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I am using a DVD+R 16X, 4.7GB, 120 min., writeable CD. Everything writes to the CD perfectly. The Puppy starts and says it will start normally in five seconds, then it stalls at the booting the kernel.
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#10
rshaffer61

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:) grrrr this is annoying me now.
OK as much as I hate to do it to you can you format that disk and try to burn it again?
This way we can make sure if it is the file itself.
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