TSGL: eek! I think I'm about to have a HD failure!
Craig
crtrav at charter.net
Sat Mar 31 23:33:00 EDT 2007
*Hi Lum,
Here's another idea (which I've never tried), that comes from the
WindowsSecrets newsletter:
Craig
===============
**Having hard-drive trouble? Don't panic! Odds are, there's a fix.*
If the CPU is your PC's brain, then the hard drive is its heart, pumping
necessary data throughout your system. Hard drive troubles are the PC
equivalent of a heart attack, but the tips below will ensure that your
data has a long life!
* When to put your drive in the freezer *
Unbelievable! It's been a month, and the reader e-mails are still coming
in about heat and cold, and their effects on various storage media. We
first discussed "How to predict CDR and DVD-R longevity" in the Feb. 8
<http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070208/#langa4> issue. We continued with
"CD-Rs don't survive freezing temperatures" in the Feb. 22
<http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070222/#langa3> issue, and "Cold weather
can damage hard drives" in the Mar. 1
<http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070301/#langa4> issue. We then ran
"Worldwide responses to CD longevity" in the Mar. 15
<http://windowssecrets.com/comp/070315/#langa4> issue, which covered
data tapes and flash drives.
But, there's more --- as this reader note from Ken Stewart suggests ---
beginning with a way that extreme cold can actually /*benefit*/ an
ailing hard drive:
* "Your article on hard drives having issues with cold temps brought
to mind an old wives' tale about freezing a bad hard drive, then
trying to get it to work for one last time. This was a last-ditch
effort to get a bad drive to come back to life one last time. I
guess that was not a good idea after all. Do you know of any
last-ditch method for getting a drive to come back from the dead?"
It's not a wives' tale, Ken. The "hard-drive-in-the-freezer" trick is a
real and proven, albeit last-resort, recovery technique for some kinds
of otherwise-fatal hard-drive problems. In fact, it's part of a trio of
unusual fixes that --- believe it or not --- can be summed up as "freeze
it," "hit it," and "drop it"!
Clearly, these fixes run the risk of further damaging a drive. They
truly are /*last-ditch efforts*/ to be called upon only when you've
already tried the normal drive fixes without success and have nothing
left to lose. (We'll come back to this in a moment.)
The freezing trick sometimes works because the mechanical
contraction/expansion may help free up binding parts. Other times, the
cold can help an aging, failingelectrical component to remain within
specs for at least a few minutes --- perhaps enough time for you to
recover your essential data from the drive.
Here's how the freezing trick works:
Take the dying, otherwise-irreparable hard drive out of your computer,
and place it a Ziploc bag (to help minimize condensation on the drives).
Put the bagged drive in a freezer for several hours. Then, working fast,
take the drive out, remove the bag, and reconnect the chilled drive to
the PC. If the drive spins up and seems to be working, get your
essential data off the drive as fast as you possibly can.
The best option for this is to selectively copy portions of the dying
drive to a new drive. Start with the most essential folder trees (My
Documents, for example), and then copy increasingly less important
folders as the drive warms up. Odds are, the drive will again become
erratic or fail. But, if you're lucky, you'll be able to squeeze one
last brief use from it.
The above method can work, but it's classification as a "last-ditch
effort" begs the question: What are the front-line techniques? Glad you
asked! Here's a series of articles I wrote that will walk you through a
whole range of proven techniques for resurrecting a dead hard drive
(including the in-the-freezer trick mentioned above):
Dead Drive Fix
<http://WindowsSecrets.com/links/$P20d/25c43ch/?url=www.langa.com%2Fnewsletters%2F2002%2F2002-06-13.htm%232>
Hard Drive Repair Options (Part One)
<http://WindowsSecrets.com/links/$P20d/3e91ebh/?url=www.langa.com%2Fnewsletters%2F2002%2F2002-06-20.htm%232>
Hard Drive Repair Options (Part Two)
<http://WindowsSecrets.com/links/$P20d/0126d8h/?url=www.langa.com%2Fnewsletters%2F2002%2F2002-06-20.htm%233>
More Dead Drive Fixes
<http://WindowsSecrets.com/links/$P20d/d54faeh/?url=www.langa.com%2Fnewsletters%2F2002%2F2002-06-24.htm%231>
Finally, a gem: 200 ways to revive a hard drive
<http://WindowsSecrets.com/links/$P20d/f6c802h/?url=articles.techrepublic.com.com%2F5100-1035_11-1034623.html>.
It's from TechRepublic, and you have to register (free) to download it.
But between that and the four items mentioned above, you'll be
well-equipped to handle just about any hard-drive problem you may encounter!
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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