Imminent Hard Drive Failure!!!!

[sharlow]

HELP
I'm in Western Australia in the area hit by the big storms last week. We had a major 2 day power outage and a lot of surges etc when the power came back on.

Since the power has come back on, my computer hasn't been working properly. Firstly it started freezing up completely, CTRL ALT DEL wouldn't solve the problem so I had to use the reset switch. Then the scary stuff started happening. It wouldn't locate my Main Hard Drive during the start up process and I'd get an error message saying PRESS ANY KEY TO REBOOT. I"d reboot and the same thing would happen. I'd have to turn off the power and let cool down for a while before it would start up. Then it would fail to get past the windows start up screen, so I'd reset it again, Then it would start up properly and I could log in as normal. However it was excruciatingly slow and would take ages to open any programs etc.

Before this happened I'd installed the latest windows updates including IE7 which for some reason will not work properly on this computer. I've since uninstalled this upgrade, done a check disk, a clean disk, an adware scan, a virus scan and a spyware scan. But to no avail as it still crashed.

Today's plan was to baby it to life, get a hijack this log off it and post it on here to see if you guys can help me.

However on turning it on I got an error message saying that it had hung during the last start up due to an improper CPU Speed (which I've had a couple of times before). I've reset it all, restarted it again, it's done the inital start up tests etc, found the hard drive that it's been having problems with no drama, then I get this horrible message

RECOMMEND TO BACK UP ALL DATA ON HARD DRIVE AS HARD DRIVE FAILURE IS IMMINENT!!!!!!.

HELP. I've turned the computer in question off, (and am thanking my lucky stars I got a laptop just before xmas or I"d be sunk). But that hard drive has all my financial records, wages for our family farm etc and lots of very important stuff on it. I'm quite happy to put a new hard drive into the computer (great excuse to get a bigger hard drive lol), but I want to turn it on and back it up first.

Is it safe to turn it on?
is there some way I could install windows on one of my other hard drives (i have 3 in the computer all up) and then access the dodgy drive from within the computer to back up the data on it without using it to boot up the computer.

I'm not game to turn it on till I can back it up incase it dies on me completely, which means I cant get a hijack this log off it either.

Thanks in advance for any help.
Jo

 

[JohnWill]

Let me guess, no backup, right?

You can install it in another system as a secondary drive and backup your data, and I suggest you do that pronto. If you want to use one of those drives to install Windows, take the failing drive with the data out, and only connect it when you are ready to copy the data off. You may well have waited too late to do backup, but you won't know until you try to get the data off the drive.

I'm at a total loss why someone with three hard disks in one computer doesn't have backup for important data.

 

[sharlow]

NOw that this has actually happened I'm at a loss as to why I've not backed it up either.
All my financial stuff is backed up luckily so thats not so bad I guess. it's all the other stuff I'm going to lose that bugs me.

I've got a new 120GB hard drive, and I"m thinking that I'll install that as my new main drive, do a full new install of windows, all the upgrades etc, then put in the dodgy drive as my secondary drive (or D drive) and try and get as much stuff off it as I can before it crashes.
Does that sound like the way to go?

Also can I reformat this drive and re-use it if I get all the stuff off and it still hasn't crashed? I've got another system in my son's room that could do with a bigger hard drive in it and this would save me coughing up for another new drive.

Thanks for your help.
Jo

 

[schusterjo]

After backing the data you may want to try this.

Start, my computer, right click on your hard drive, select properties, select tools, error checking click "check now"(chkdsk).

And

Hard Disk Drive Diagnostics/Utilities

 

[sharlow]

Thank you. I've already done the chkdsk thing, and it told me there were no bad sectors or anything wrong with the drive, but it was very slow. It took all day to do the scan. I'll make sure to do it again tho after I get it backed up.

thanks again.
J

 

[Rich-M]

Drive is failing and you would even think to use it as a backup drive????
Drives are so inexpensive these days...

 

[sharlow]

Drive is failing and you would even think to use it as a backup drive????
Drives are so inexpensive these days...

This is all new to me, never had this happen before, so I don't know if the drive is recoverable or bin able. Please bear with a newby and all the related dumb questions.

J

 

[JohnWill]

The fact that it's taking a long time to run stuff like CHKDSK indicates it's indeed failing. IMO, you need to do what I suggested and get any data that you can off before the drive totally dies. Screwing around doing CHKDSK on it is only risking more damage. CHKDSK's idea of "fixing" things is deleting them.

 

[sharlow]

Thanks for that information. I've installed a new hard drive and re-installed windows, which has taken all day of course. I'm just getting my courage up to hook up the dodgy drive and see what I can rescue. Any suggestions on the best way to back it up? Programs etc that I might be able to use?
Thanks again.
J

 

[JohnWill]

Since it's probably got multiple bad sectors, I'd stick with going directly to the most important files and using Windows Explorer to fetch them. FWIW, you may need this if you run into access rights issues. If that fails, then it's time for more heavyweight data recovery applications.

How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP

 

[brite750]

Thanks for that information. I've installed a new hard drive and re-installed windows, which has taken all day of course. I'm just getting my courage up to hook up the dodgy drive and see what I can rescue. Any suggestions on the best way to back it up? Programs etc that I might be able to use?
Thanks again.
J

FWIW you will not be able to back-up programs, programs must be installed from the original disk or exe file, you cant just take a program folder, plunk it into another system and have it run, it doesnt work that way..

 

[grandma77]

FWIW you will not be able to back-up programs, programs must be installed from the original disk or exe file, you cant just take a program folder, plunk it into another system and have it run, it doesnt work that way..

Sharlow didn't want to back up programs. Sharlow was asking about a program to do the back up and John Will is helping with that.

 

[sharlow]

Hi all, and thanks heaps with all your advice.
I got the drive to run again and got most of the stuff off I needed. Saved all my financial stuff, and did a full back up of the drive. Did a sector repair on it which seems to have made it a bit more stable, but it's still crashing. Looks to me as tho it's overheating. Does anyone have any advice on stopping it happening. I have a case fan and the other 2 drives are just fine, I've gotten a monitoring program for them and they aren't overheating, just this one.
Any tips would be gratefully received.
regards
J

 

[MysticEyes]

Any tips would be gratefully received

Throw it out.

 

[Rich-M]

Exactly, garbage is and only ever will be: garbage. Prices have come down so much today, no reason to nurse failing drive and risk what you have on pc.