I have problems with the hard drive on my notebook (windows). FDISK
doesn't solve these problems. How do I know whether the hard drive is
beyond repair? |
Request for Question Clarification by
missy-ga
on
23 Jun 2003 09:27 PDT
Can you be more specific about the problems you're having? Are you
getting an error message? If yes, what? Weird noises? What do they
sound like? Which Windows are you using (95/98/ME/XP)?
The more you tell us, the better we'll be able to try to help you.
--Missy
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Clarification of Question by
mission-ga
on
23 Jun 2003 09:38 PDT
I have a Compaq laptop that's a little over a year old.
The OS is Windows XP Home edition.
A few weeks ago, it started slowing down, then freezing or crashing.
There was sometimes a blue screen with white type, with problems that
were disk-related (e.g. unmounted drive, I don't remember the
specifics)
Compaq has what they call "Quick Restore" (a disk image) to restore
the hard drive to factory condition.
I did the "Quick Restore"... but soon experienced the same problems
again.
I then tried FDISK with a Windows 98 boot disk, and still had problems
(the FDISK seemed to go fine, but when I went out of it, I got a
"error writing to disk".
I did that many times. The error was not consistently there.
But, if FDISK seemed to work, I would then have a problem during
"Quick Restore", or after it.
Doing CHKDSK gives me errors, which are corrected, but recur.
Doing FDISK/MBR gives me no boot record.
Based on this, i believe the problem is with the hard drive.
What I don't know is whether this is beyond repair (i.e. I need to
change the hard drive)... or whether there's a way around it.
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Request for Question Clarification by
feilong-ga
on
23 Jun 2003 09:45 PDT
"A few weeks ago, it started slowing down, then freezing or crashing."
What happened before the problem occured? Did you accidentally dropped
or jarred your laptop? At this point, it's too early to conclude that
it's an HD problem. Your problem can also be caused by loose
connections or other problems.
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Clarification of Question by
mission-ga
on
23 Jun 2003 10:45 PDT
No, there was no shock or major jolt to the computer.
I don't recall anything that I can correlate with the slowing down of
performance.
I would think of possibly a virus... but I've always had Norton
Antivirus on. Besides, I'd assume FDISK would get rid of viruses?
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Request for Question Clarification by
feilong-ga
on
23 Jun 2003 17:04 PDT
"A few weeks ago, it started slowing down..."
Some hard drive manufacturers have diagnostic software to check for
physical drive problems. What brand is your hard drive? Have you tried
using the diagnostic software for your drive? If you can confirm that
the drive has slowed down or slows down intermittently, your HD motor
is failing.
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Clarification of Question by
mission-ga
on
23 Jun 2003 17:45 PDT
I am not aware of any diagnostic software for the hard drive (none
offered thru Compaq).
The tests I used were:
- SCANDISK (all OK, but that doesn't seem to mean much)
- CHKDSK (errors, repaired, but then more errors come in later)
- FDISK (see above clarifications for description of errors)
- FDISK /MBR (see description in above clarifications)
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Request for Question Clarification by
mvguy-ga
on
23 Jun 2003 18:56 PDT
What I would try doing is first make backups of anything you need.
Then reformat the hard disk, reinstall the operating system and see
what happens. If that doesn't solve the problem, you almost certainly
have a hardware problem of some sort.
For a hard drive to fail after a hear isn't unheard of. Mine on my
laptop failed after 9 months; fortunately, the unit was still under
warranty.
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Request for Question Clarification by
feilong-ga
on
23 Jun 2003 20:04 PDT
Hello Mission,
You can't find the HD diagnostic software from Compaq because only the
specific manufacturer of your drive has it. If your drive, for
example, is Seagate, then go to the Seagate.com and download their
diagnostic software. If Maxtor, then go to Maxtor.com, and so on.
FDISK is not really an HD repair or diagnostics utility. It is a
formatting utility. Your best option is to use an in-depth disk
utility such as Norton Disk Doctor as suggested by my colleague,
Arimathea. But before you do that, I suggest that you get the
appropriate diagnostic software for your drive so you'll know what the
problem is. If you have verified that the problem is the MBR and no
formatting utility can make/write the MBR, it would be better for you
to get a new drive.
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Clarification of Question by
mission-ga
on
24 Jun 2003 09:20 PDT
Thanks for all these comments and helpful questions.
It gives me a good sense that it is worth replacing the hard drive.
There is no problem about the data: I already had them backed up. I
just didn't want to incur the expense of a new hard drive if that was
not necessary.
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