[rshaffer61]

What test failed?

• 
  
• Short
• Long
• Smart

Which one failed?

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Long
various errors were reported as it progressed. I think it got to about 74 as it approached 75%, then it showed as 'test failed'.

Short and SMART seemed to be ok.

[analyst]

Long
various errors were reported as it progressed. I think it got to about 74 as it approached 75%, then it showed as 'test failed'.

Short and SMART seemed to be ok.

[123Runner]

Using the manufacturers diagnostics is the best way to determine if the drive is good or bad.
Since it failed, that drive is dead.

What confuses me is why Ubuntu won't load to memory. This could be one of those unexplained anomalies.

[rshaffer61]

Please go to post 12 and run the memtest just to be sure.

[analyst]

It looks very much as though its all over, R.I.P.

I coupled the drive as slave on another machine to check it out.
It all looked fine, could see the directory/file structure, blah, blah . .
Ran chkdsk /r from a Dos Prompt and it appeared to do a lot of fixing, i.e. deleting corrupt attributes, correcting errors in index, recovering orphaned files. By the time it was finished everything seemed OK, as far as chkdsk was concerned.

Put it back in original machine, ran the HDD long test
Showed 54 errors at 7% test, and 64 errors at 62% and concluded with 'failed'

Decided to see what happens if I tried to boot machine as before, when I could at least get to WinXP splash screen, and now at first post screen it identifies the primary master accurately for what it is, Maxtor . . but then it halts with "Primary master hard disk fail", so it is worse than it was before I ever started (not that it was much use then anyway)

A quick shift back as slave as previous on other machine, and now even BIOS fails to recognise its existence.

Terminal case I'd say??

EDIT: co-incidentally, the ubuntu cd now loads. Its a funny old world.

Edited by analyst, 22 November 2010 - 06:31 AM.

[rshaffer61]

Yeah it sounds like a faulty drive at this point.
Did you manage to backup any data while you could see it when slaved?
At this point a replacement is the option.
What capacity is the drive and I will try to find you some deals on them or maybe a little larger.

[analyst]

I didn't have anything worth backing up so that's not an issue.

I only wanted to repair it because it had the licensed OEM install of WinXP.
The drive is only 40Gb, but what I was going to do was just keep it for the OS to run on and put in another drive of a decent size as slave for all other purposes.

So now I'm back to an (even) older machine with Windows 2000, but that seems to be cracking up now, and is no longer supported. This was my hope of transferring everything over to WinXP.

[rshaffer61]

80 gig drives start at 35.99 + 6.29 shipping for a total of 42.28 from NewEgg.

[analyst]

thanks, but I don't actually need a drive

what I did need was WinXP, which I'd hoped to use from that drive

[rshaffer61]

OK I'm confused.

If the 18 gig drive is bad and was the main drive I'm not sure how you can use it then as it will fail.
If your intentions is to use it in another system as the main drive with the existing OS installed it may not work as the other system will require different drivers to work.
I'm confused as to what you are attempting to do.

[analyst]

I was attempting to use it as the primary drive in its existing situation (40gig not 18). I would then have added another (larger) drive as slave.

When I started this, I thought it was only a WinXP problem to be repaired, not a drive failure problem. It was attempting to boot WinXP but stalled part way through. Had I fixed the OS I had hoped to get a usable system with the OEM installation.

It now transpires that as the drive has failed I shall not be able to run Win XP, which would have been a useful step forward from an older Windows 2000 machine.

Hope that makes it clearer.

[rshaffer61]

Yes it does. So at this point you have a win 2000 system and another system or were you trying to change the win 2000 system to XP?

[analyst]

Yes, I have a Win 2000 system, about 2001 vintage, but it seems to be throwing up glitches now, and even though I have the installation disk, if I did a reinstall I wouldn't get the updates from Micro$oft.

Then I was given a computer, probably dated about 2004-ish which had an existing OEM XP installation but no disk with it. I had hoped that could fix up OK and I'd end up with a better system overall, running XP.

[rshaffer61]

Well the XP system you can replace the HD and then borrow any OEM XP installation disk of the same type that is installed. Home, Media or Pro
You can install using the disk and use the reg key that should be on a sticker on the side or bottom of the system.
The other option is to purchase a new HD and a new XP OEM disk. That would give you a completely legal system and you would have the original disks then that belong to you.