[Dan 1992]

Hi, my laptop randomly started freezing 2 days ago. it only did it once or twice but i found it weird since it never used to do that and it froze entirely so i had to restart it. anyways yesterday i had the same problems and hard drive warnings saying there was a SMART failure or something and harddrive failure was iminent...

i might be mistaken but i think the sounds coming from the computer aren't the same as before and at first were almost silent/dead but now there is some sound again...

anyways i can usually log in for like a minute so i kept trying and failing to email myself my coursework assignments and other work before it frozze again and i had to restart it...

i tried turning it on now and it says tonnes of stuff in white writing on a black background including most worryingly (to me since i can't understand the rest) at the bottom: "Operating System not found."

Edited by Dan 1992, 01 January 2010 - 10:06 AM.

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it tends to start saying:

"SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 2: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0-(S1)

WARNING: Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent.

Press F1 to Continue."

and then i may or may not get a chance to log in for a tiny amount of time...

[Dan 1992]

it tends to start saying:

"SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 2: WDC WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0-(S1)

WARNING: Immediately back-up your data and replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent.

Press F1 to Continue."

and then i may or may not get a chance to log in for a tiny amount of time...

[rshaffer61]

Hello Dan 1992.... Welcome to GeeksToGo,,
I am sorry to hear about your issue but let's try to make sure your data is safe before you go much longer and the drive fails completely.
To do this we will need to have you get a Linux Live Cd to access the drive and backup your important data files.

Get Puppy Linux from my signature below...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 puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.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




.

[Dan 1992]

Hello Dan 1992.... Welcome to GeeksToGo,,


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...

.

thanks very much for the advice, but about the flash-drive, i was thinking of using one since it's quicker than emailing stuff to myself, but i don't have one right now. i used to have 2 but i lost both lol =s ... so i don't know what's best to do...

anyways thank-you, i'll try my best to do what you said.

Edited by Dan 1992, 01 January 2010 - 10:25 AM.

[rshaffer61]

The reason for the Linux live cd as you won't physically be using the drive. It allows access to the data without starting the OS system on the drive.
You can use the internal in Puppy to burn the data to cd's or to a dvd.
The instructions include the flash drive instructions because a lot of people wanted to be able to do it this way.
I hope that clarifies it for you.

[Dan 1992]

oh, ok thanks, i'll give it a try then, i've never burned a cd before but i think this desktop is capable of it so should be fine... thanks again =D happy new year ^^

[rshaffer61]

You are welcome and please elt us know how it goes.
As for the hard drive itself I would say you do have a failing drive and we can run a diagnostics on it if you would like to make sure before spending money on a replacement. If you don't know who the manufacturer of your Hard Drive(HD) is then I suggest getting the SeaTools diagnostics as it will work with most drives now.


Run hard drive diagnostics: http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.

NOTE. If your hard drive is made by Toshiba, unfortunately, you're out of luck, because Toshiba doesn't provide any diagnostic tool.

Thanks to Broni for the instructions


http://usasma.vox.co...iagnostics.html