PC help needed

[Fragle]

ok...i have a PC with two harddisks, one for the OS (win xp) only, the other one for all the data and programs.
yesterday my second harddisk crapped out on me.
sidenote: a few days prior to that i started to experience some graphic problems, meaning that some colors wouldn't be displayed properly. maybe there's a connection?
the system was running just fine (except for those (rather minor, though) graphic issues, when all of a sudden i got some error messages (win xp...bottom right corner of the screen) where it said that the file so and so was broken and that i should run chkdsk. i was like, wtf, when these messages started to pop up one right after the other, and after like 30 seconds basically anything related to the harddisk was dead (e.g. i got some powertab files on my desktop that started to look like unknown files, because the powertab program itself was "lost" basically).
the HD is still visible in the explorer, but when clicking on attributes it says that it's a) full and b) has a capacity of 0 kb? when clicking on the HD in the explorer it says that the HD is broken and cannot be opened (or something to that effect at least)

the HD i'm talking about is a 250GB maxtor that's about 1 1/2 years old. it consisted of 3 partitions.


i'm mainly concerned about the data...i DO have 2 CDs where i stored the most important files, but the backup is not quite up to date. furthermore - and most importantly - i had all my music on that HD because i'm using the PC as my stereo system. while i haven't really downloaded any of that stuff (plus i got 12 mp3 cds i have in my car which covers almost everything that was on this HD as far as music goes...) it still a MAJOR pain in the ass copying all that stuff back to another HD.....shitloads of time

so, if anyone of you guys has any info to share i'd be very grateful. if you need any further info let me know, but keep in mind that my own PC is pretty much dead so i won't be online that often.

thanks in advance

[Guyver1]

try booting in safe mode (press F8 while the machines doing the BIOS crap at the beginning)

try accessing the drive, try getting hole of partition magic and gettign that to check the partitions to see if theres any probs there, check the IDE cables are still plugged in properly and also the power cable. try the HDD in a different machine, run a virus check.

[Fragle]

right now the HDD is built into another PC (just to check if there's anything wrong with the drive or with my PC), but i'll try to boot that one in safe mode.

i don't have partition magic, but i'll to "access" one

the IDE and power cables are fine.


i wonder if the failure could be due to overheating? it's been REALLY hot lately, and even though i've got one of the large towers there's not a whole lot of space between the 2 HDDs and the 3.5" floppy.

[m2pmd70]

Did you run chkdsk on it like i recommended?

If not go Start/Run... type 'cmd' and hit return. When the command prompt comes up type 'chkdsk' followed by a space and the drive letter followed by a colon then another space, and forward slash 'r', (like "chkdsk d: /r").

[Fragle]

yes, i did do so.
when running chkdsk on the OS HDD it's just fine. i DID also run chkdsk on the other HDD, and the first time it worked just fine, however, the "semi dos" thing closed right after ck´hkdsk was done, so i couldn't see the results.
after that (when the hdd really broke down) i can't run ckdsk on that HDD, because i get an error message stating that it's unavailable or something to that effect.

[Newc]

Did you by any chance use Windows Media Player to rip the CDs? I lost a 250GB Western Digital drive that had all the CDs I ripped. One day it was fine, then it was toast.

I'm thinking it's got something to do with Media Player and that whole "license" deal - like maybe it tries to delete the stuff after so long but screws the drive.

[Fragle]

no, i used audiograbber software. IIRC the windows media player only creates wma files, but i need mp3 in order to run several editing programs e.g. to slow things down or change the pitch.

but yes, the media player DOES suck hard the whole license thing is totally ´ridiculous.

as far as the HDD is concerned, i'll try to access it using linux OS...if that doesn't work i'll probably just screw the drive, except if someone here can find a solution. thank god that i found another backup CD of some more downloaded stuff (im on isdn, therefore downloading anything takes ages...).....in the end i'd just have to download and install some programs, grab the music, and copy the backups......still shitloads of work :/

[horns666]

Dude, were you on Bubblebutts.com by any chance..

I LOVE that!!..but it fucked my shit up..

Sorry, dude..I'm in silly mode..hope ya get it fixed man!!

[SeventhSon]

there are hard drive recovery companies around but they are expensive. i was in the same boat. believe me, at the prices they charged, they wanted to recover my data, but they couldn't. 3 different companies. i must've lost like 10 years worth of stuff.