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Hi, I'm working on another computer that can't boot up. I get post and it dectects except it says error loading operating system. I've run the Western Digital Lifeguard tool for the drive and it gives me a warning message saying "one or more current or worst case attributes are below threshold". There was like ten things listed with two astericks on the first and last ones listed. This hard drive is pretty much dead isn't it? I'm surprised since this computer was built in 1998. Only six years and it's a
Western Digital?
"Only six years and it's a
Western Digital?"It was warrantied for three years, or at the most 5 - it's lasted longer than that.
It's either dying or dead. If it is making clicking or thrashing noises it is definately dead.
Try booting with a bootable floppy for the same operating system it has on it
(type C, then colon press enter) C:(enter)If that works, try typing dir(enter)
If that works you could try connecting/jumpering it as slave on this or another computer that has another drive as master on the same data cable, and you may be able to recover some of the data before it fails completely.
Run scandisk on it - the whole drive - before you attempt copying any files.
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I would try to retrieve as much of the files before running scan disk, then run scandisk and try copying the files again. I had a drive die while running scandisk.
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I agree with Wizard Fred. Scandisk taxes the drive, moving the heads all over the place!
With a drive thats on its last legs. scandisk will just about administer the coup de grâce.
Once you have recovered what you can, then run scandisk, although it is unlikely to achieve much except confirm what you already know.
Depending on how much the drive is used, six years is a good life span although I have had a number of Seagate drives that have lasted a lot longer.
Stuart
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"I would try to retrieve as much of the files before running scan disk, then run scandisk and try copying the files again. I had a drive die while running scandisk."
You could, but you take the risk some files and the directory structure are likely to be corrupted, and may even cause harm to where they are copied if they are used.
You could look at it with something else such chkdsk in XP, which can merely look for problems if you so choose. Or use Norton Disk Doctor when the drive is connected as slave in Win ME or below (it will default to using chkdsk after a reboot in XP) - you can just insert the CD in Windows and run it from the CD - and make sure it doesn't do a full surface scan - it will tell with minimal scan it will tell you if there are major problems with the directory structure, certain files, you can choose not to repair anything if you want, and you can avoid copying those file and directories.
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It didn't say it has to make noises - it CAN make noises in some cases.
Re-read response 1 - if you can't access C: at all your drive is dead!!
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Considering it is a Western Digital drive you can be almost 100% it is up the creek.
These are very poor quality drives and usualy fail within five to six years if your lucky. Sometimes you usualy only make it past warranty.
You may be able to revive the drive temporarily so as to recover your data and files to another drive.
Look on the web for Hirens boot CD, you will need a blank cd and cd writer. After writing the CD set your bios to boot from cd and run the program Drive regenerator. This will map any bad clusters to a good part of the drive allowing you to recover.
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Sorry better going to the genuine wesite here
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/hiren.thanki/bootcd.html
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Western Digitals only last about the warranty then they die? So what are high quality hard drives? I'm talking about something that would probably last 10 years with normal use. BTW there is no data on the drive I want. Just wondering if there was anything I could do.
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>> I'm talking about something that would probably last 10 years with normal use. <<
Define normal use?
You can have a drive running for 24 hours a day for 365 days of a year, then some that only run for a few hours every other day.
A disk drive is essentially a mechanical device. Inside there is a disk spinning on a spindle at 7500 rpm under varying temperatures not to mention an actuator are that is moving backward and forward at an amazing speed.
What other mechanical device can run for ten years without maintenance?
Having said that, Seagate offer a five year guarantee and they often last longer.
Stuart
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"BTW there is no data on the drive I want. Just wondering if there was anything I could do."
You should have mentioned that in the first place. The drive must be fdisk-ed (partitioned) and formatted, and it must have at least bare bones operating sytem files on the drive, or it CANNOT boot in any case.
"it gives me a warning message saying "one or more current or worst case attributes are below threshold". There was like ten things listed with two astericks on the first and last ones listed."
Those warnings are often to do with the Smart feature on recent drives - the drive diagnoses itself all the time and keeps track of errors. Most hard drive diagnostics are able to read that Smart info, and tell you about it. If your bios is set to enable display of Smart info, when Smart "thinks" you should be advised things are not right and the drive is failing, you get a warning about that drive everytime you boot. If you did not enable that display in the bios, you will not get such a message. The Smart diagnostics installed by the manufacturers are often "dummbed down" so as to not make the manufacturer look bad in comparison to other drive makers, and they all "dumb down" Smart. Because of that, when you DO get warnings, the drive is often even worse than the warnings indicate.
If the drive does not pass the Lifeguard tests, it is garbage.
In my experience, in all cases where a diagnostic program has given me those kinds of messages, probably all Smart info, the hard drive did not pass the tests, or the diagnostic quit the test before it was finished because the drive was that bad.
...If the drive lasts longer than the warranty period, it's done the job it was supposed to do - if it was heavily used and abused, it's a wonder it lasts that long. Just what do expect?
The reason Seagate has gone back to a 5 year warranty is they have found their drives that had a warranty of 3 years were on average nearly always still fine at five years. That may very well also be the case for other manufacturers.Why would anyone want to use a hard drive for ten years? Ten years ago the fastest drives could'nt even do UDMA33, their caches were tiny, and a 2gb or 4gb were huge drives!
Western Digital had some dud models in the past, but I don't think they are any better or worse than most other brands these days, on average.
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It did have an operating system. It just doesn't have anything important on it. I pretty much new the hard drive was dying even before my sister came to me with the problem. I just had no idea that a drive dies so quickly. I remember my brothers 486's hard drive still ran and it is really old. He also used it a lot but who knows. It happens. What's the point of SMART and their diagnotic tools. It told me something I already knew without having to download and run things. Hard drive was going bad time to change it. WD says it rarely ever corrects those ECC errors. And if it does consider it your last chance to get the data off of it.
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