[Hish]

Well, it me again. I had problems with my harddisk, the partition table to be more exact, but now that's fixed, now my other harddisk is screwing up my brain. It was all good until my brother installed a game i think (Conquer Online) and the harddisk could not be read. Every time I boot the computer now, i get this error screen saying that the harddisk is "BAD" and then i have to press F1. Then when trying to go into windows, it load and loads and loads, until i just disconnect the harddisk, then it goes into windows without anything unnormal.

I've tried to check for errors in partition magic, and i got this:
Error #1511
Bad restart record format
Error #45
CRC error in data

One important think you should know is that my harddisk it making some wierd noises. I have some very important files in there and i would not want it to be lost.
Can anyone tell me what i can do?

Harddisk = Fujitsu MPG3409AT E (40G)

(Im running windows from another harddisk, and the other harddisk is not connected)

thanks.

[big poppa pump]

If the HDD is making wierd noises, thats a warning sign that the HDD is about to die. Try to salvage whatever your can from the HDD ASAP. You never know when the HDD is gonna bite the dust.

[LLXX]

If your HDD hangs the Windows boot and makes wierd noises, attempt to make a sector-by-sector image of its data. Copying files manually may aggravate the situation.

[Hish]

LLXX, on Jan 21 2006, 10:06 AM, said:

If your HDD hangs the Windows boot and makes wierd noises, attempt to make a sector-by-sector image of its data. Copying files manually may aggravate the situation.

Can you tell me how i can take the sector-by-sector image of its data? And i suppose that i should do it in dos?

[jaclaz]

The problem is that you need enough storage capacity to contain the image (another hard disk)

It can be done from DOS, Win NT/2k/XP or Linux.

Best option is to use a bootfloppy or bootcd on a machine that only has:
1) the "damaged" hard disk
2) a newish other one

Suitable FREEWARE apps:
Windows:
Roadkil's apps
http://www.roadkil.net/
DSFOK:
http://members.ozema...eezip/freeware/
DD for windows:
http://uranus.it.swi...rawwrite/dd.htm

BartPE:
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm

Linux:
built-in dd command
http://www.partimage.org/
http://ping.windowsdream.com/

jaclaz

[LLXX]

The importance is that your Operating System must not attempt to write or read files from the disk during startup, as that can make it harder on an already failing drive. It is for this reason that I recommend it be done in DOS. Windows all versions will attempt to write or read certain files from the attached disks when it starts.

[suryad]

LLXX I didnt know that. Cool bit of info.

I would suggest a brand new hdd ASAP.