TSGL: eek! I think I'm about to have a HD failure!

[Craig]

*Hi Lum,

Had to offer my 2 cents' worth. A program called SpinRite from 
www.grc.com offers this description:
*

SpinRite, which is distributed as a single 170Kb file (yes, that's 
right, 170Kb which shows you what writing code in assembler can get you; 
tight code) gets "down to the bare metal" of a hard drive and verifies 
and tests the physical magnetic media and warn you (as well as fix) of 
impending problems BEFORE they happen. If you have lost data SpinRite 
may be able to do CPR on the damaged media and bring the data back to 
life. Other features, such as drive benchmarking, are icing on the cake.

*and this:
*

SpinRite is totally non-destructive nor does it care about your 
operating system; it boots from a floppy it creates so it'll handle just 
about any disk format including NTFS.

*The big caveat is that it costs $89.00, and there is NOT a 
try-before-you-buy option, also, the last time I ran it, it took 15 
hours to complete. Their testimonial section is full of stories of how a 
dead hard drive can be, and often is, resurrected to good working order 
-with original data intact.

I hate, believe me, to sound like an advertisement, but it really sounds 
like you would be a candidate for SpinRite. It's saved me before, & I'm 
glad to have it in my arsenal. There's tons of info about it at their 
site. At least they have a $-back guarantee.

Again, my apologies for sounding so doggone commercial.

Best of luck,
Craig
*
luminosity wrote:
> Hi y'all,
>
> The other day I decided (I don't know now whether it was exceedingly 
> foolish or seredipitously wise) to install a hardware check program, 
> which I have since uninstalled (HDInspector).  I ran the check, and my 
> three physical HD's came up--2 healthy, with a warning that my 250gb 
> drive was running at 130 degrees, and I should buy another fan, and my 
> C:drive came up as 100% working but "unreliable."   I'm not surprised.  
> I have had that drive sans errors running for about 60,000 hours. So, 
> today I buy a new hard drive and a fan, right?  But wait there's more!
>
> The first problem popped up when I had to reboot my computer immediately 
> after I got that message.  It usually takes Windows XP about 90 seconds 
> to boot up.  This took ten minutes.  It did boot, though. 
>
> The second problem popped up when I tried to switch to another user.  My 
> husband and I have separate accounts on here.  I'm "me," and he's "you," 
> easy enough.  His desktop wallpaper came up after over ten minutes, and 
> then no icons or taskbar at all.  The task manager wouldn't even come 
> up. So, I shut down.
>
> I rebooted to last known good configuration.  Took *ages*.   Then I got 
> a blue screen of death that I couldn't read at all because it flashed by 
> so quickly.
>
> Finally, after another ten-minute reboot, I was able to boot to my 
> account.  I got a winlogon error (which I'm assuming could have been the 
> BSOD error as well, but it's only an assumption).
>
> I'm going to run a chkdsk now, and I'm backing up everything on my C: 
> drive, and I do mean everything.
>
> I've never (*stop laughing!* :)  ) had to restore a drive by myself.  
> I've always just...started over.
>
> My questions are:  Am I doing the right thing now?  Is it possible for 
> me to *ghost* the entire drive to another healthy drive and have 
> everything work, thereby not having to go spend $100 today on a new 
> HD?   I have an 80gb drive that I could certainly split out into two 
> virtual drives, right? 
>
> I'm sure I have other questions that I'm too ignorant to ask right now, 
> and I'm afraid that y'all are going to have every answer I need, but my 
> HD will have died by the time y'all's help comes around.  So, just in 
> case, I'm going to put my other address here, and when things settle, 
> I'll just change my group mail address to gmail.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Lum (luminosity.deville AT gmail DOT com)
>
> OH! Here's what I have.
>
> Windows XP Pro SP2
> AMD Athlon 64 Processor
> 3200+
> 2.01Ghz, 1 GB RAM
> Physical Address Extension (I don't know what that means)
>
> Three physical HD's 40gb, 80gb, 250gb
>
> Application errors this morning from my event viewer:
>
> Windows cannot access the file C:\WINDOWS\system32\uxtheme.dll for one 
> of the following reasons:  there is a problem with the network 
> connection, the disk that the file is stored on, or the storage drivers 
> installed on this computer; or the disk is missing.  Windows closed the 
> program Microsoft UxTheme Library because of this error.
>
> Program: Microsoft UxTheme Library
> File: C:\WINDOWS\system32\uxtheme.dll
> The error value is listed in the Additional Data section.
> User Action
>
> (I don't know what this is, but it came up three times)
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Fault bucket 00470146.
> For more information, see Help and Support Center at 
> http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Faulting application winlogon.exe, version 0.0.0.0, faulting module 
> uxtheme.dll, version 6.0.2900.2180, fault address 0x0002ad65.
> For more information, see Help and Support Center at 
> http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> That's everything I can think of, short of my home phone number.  :)  
> Thank you again.
>
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