[twscarp]

Hi everyone, about a year ago I tried to start my Sony laptop and got the message "operating system not found". I shut it down, restarted, and it booted up fine. Now last week I got the same message and had to restart 4 times before it booted up. Now this morning, same message and booted after 1 restart. For the last couple years I have run a monthly CheckDisk from the system tools, it has always tested clean, with 0 bad sectors (Nov 1, 09 was the last time). I installed HDD Health about a year ago, and did get a high temperature warning once on a very hot day here, but other than that, the program says the drive is 100% healthy. A few days ago I installed DiskCheckup, it has much more info about the drive, but it also shows the drive is in good shape. I looked at the Event Viewer and am getting Red X errors with the source codes: disk and Id #11, Dhcp and #1002, atapi and #5, and Warning code, disk and #51. The computer is 4 1/2 years old, and is used daily for a couple hours, but not used hard. The drive is a Fujitsu MHT2080AT with 80% free space, is quite, and seems to be fine. Any thoughts would be helpful.

Sony PCG-K45, XP Home, Pentium 4 3.20 GHz, 960 MB RAM

Thanks, Tom

[Triple6]

Run the Fujitsu hard drive diagnostics and see what it reports about the drive: http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/c...tml#diagnostic

Might be a loose drive connection, try removing and reinstalling the hard drive.

[twscarp]

Thanks Triple6, the drive passed the short test, the long test is 80 minutes, and I don't have that time today. Will try it tonight, or in the morning.

Thanks, Tom

[Rich-M]

Most of the drive utility programs are really inadequate in my experience and checkdisk works most of the time but bad sectors are not the only reason that happens. Since we know that hard drives are generally warranted for 3 years and you are beyond that, and imho Fujitsu drives are amongst the worst quality, I would just replace the hard drive is my advice.

[twscarp]

Hi Rich-M, I'll probably run the long test for the heck of it, and thanks for the advice. I'm assuming if I put in a new drive, I could use my burned Linux rescue disk to install my Macrium full image. When the computer was brand new an acquaintance burned the 7 recovery disks for me. Will those disks work with a new HDD? Would the Linux rescue disk also work with the XP recovery disks? It would be nice if I could get a fresh XP OS, although I don't think there is anything wrong with the imaged copy. What do you think?

Thanks, Tom

[Rich-M]

When the computer was brand new an acquaintance burned the 7 recovery disks for me. Will those disks work with a new HDD?

Yes that is what they are for.

Would the Linux rescue disk also work with the XP recovery disks? It would be nice if I could get a fresh XP OS, although I don't think there is anything wrong with the imaged copy. What do you think?

This one I just don't understand, sorry.

[twscarp]

Hi again, the extended test of the HDD I did last night, said the drive passed. I understand it is not perfect, and cannot analyze everything. And I did get another warning this morning, had to Ctrl-Alt-Delete, to boot up. Is it possible that the HDD is OK, but some program in the OS is causing the problem? I've tried to investigate this, but with my limited knowledge, I don't know exactly what to do. From what I have read the recovery disks are used to restore an existing or original drive. It gathers info from a restore partition, (I'm over my head here), needed to complete the install. If I install a new HDD, will the recovery disks work, without that partition? From what I can gather, that partition contains the drivers, (again over my head), and other items needed. I suppose all that info would have to be downloaded, or somehow saved to be reinstalled on the new HDD. I'm not opposed to that method if in fact, that is correct, I just don't know how to do it. A friend told me maybe something is corrupted in the OS, causing the problem. With my Macrium image installed on a new HDD, the original info would still be there, then I could use the recovery disks to return the OS to factory fresh, if the problem continues. Does that make sense? I would like to get the procedure figured (in my mind), with your guys help, before I jump in .

Thanks for your patience, Tom

[Rich-M]

Yes Restore Disks restore the drive to original state with no files and data and they also add a recovery partition, but they do not use it. They are self contained. If you want to restore exactly what is on the drive then you need thrid party software where many now have shortened version of Acronis so you can clone the drive which puts files and data back as well at Windows and whatever programs are there.

[twscarp]

OK, thanks for your help,...Tom

[twscarp]

OK here is where I'm at now. Got an error #55 Ntfs in event viewer, did a chkntfs c, it came back "c: is dirty". Ran chkdsk /r, found problem areas and repaired them. I have Norton Internet Security 2009, but added Webroot Spy Sweeper. Hoping for the best, but still thinking the HDD is possibly going south. Still not sure on reinstalling XP on a new drive, will start another thread for that, but we'll call this one solved.

Thanks, Tom