Hard drive Problems?

I recently had a bunch of school books fall onto, and slam the lid of my laptop shut. Immediatly after this happened, the game i was playing froze and the laptop stopped responding.

I was able to reboot it, but it continued to freeze after a particular duration. The first time it was up for a good 20 minutes, then 15...

now it's goten so bad that it refuses to even get past the splash screen.

Each and every time it stops responding, The hard drive begins making a noise that is very particular. It's two high pitched grinds, followed by a low grind.

It makes this noise continously.

I took it out and plugged into my external enclosure, and found I was able to access it just fine. how ever when I began attempting to back data up, every 30th file or so was found to be corrupt.

A link to an image of the actual error message.
Link

but the error message was one thats typically given with "windows back up" utility errors.

I know this because I researched the error code i received.

A link to a google search of the error code:
Link


Now all i'm doing is moving the files from the old hard drive to another one. So I dont understand why I'm geting windows vista drive back up errors.

All the "fixes" I found, dealt with disabling Windows restore feature on some drives. When doing those fixes, i found none worked.



My Actual question, i suppose is...


has any one had a problem similar to this?

And is this actual hard drive failure, or is there something cataclysmically wrong with the windows vista instalation on the other hard drive?



p.s. the specs for the laptop with the HDD problems is labeled "AEVA" in my signature, if your curious.

 

It sounds like the weight of the books falling on the system has caused pressure on the top of the harddrive, which may have caused one of the harddrive heads to whack against the spinning platters inside the drive, causing instability and incomplete data transfers.
Have you tried any imaging software like acronis trueimage, or anything like that. They may be more helpful in copying your files, than manually copying them one by one.

I am sorry that you are having problems. I dont think the harddrive is repairable, but you can try running the scandisc programs which Microsoft provides. Run some surface scans, and see if the system can repair any of the damaged sectors.

Good luck,

K-TRON

 

I ran scandisk a few times, it always locks up at around 15%

I was able to copy around 90% of my valuable data, which is better than 0%...less a few episodes of some anime TV shows, I can't really tell whats missing, but over half the files i transfered were just logs...so, it's not a huge deal, and even those seem mostly in tact.

I'm just sad my hard drive is dead...I've ordered a new one from new egg, hopefully it'll be here soon so i can start fixing things.


Thanks for your help and good wishes K TRON...

 

hmm,
have you tried any of the ultimate boot cd's to see if through a UNIX kernel, you can gain access to the files you cannot copy.

You can also try knoppix and see if you can get into the harddrive that way.

If you cant copy the files than you are out of luck, but if you can that would be great.

Your ASUS is not that old, the harddrive should be covered by the manufacturers warranty. Usually Hitachi, Western Digital, Samsung, Fujitsu and Toshiba carry a 3 year warranty on the drive. Seagate puts a 5 year on them.
So if your drive is still under warranty from the manufacturer send it back and get a replacement drive. WD and Seagate will send you a refurbished drive for replacement, but through experiences with Hitachi, they send you a new harddrive.
In any case, you can use the replaced harddrive as a backup drive.

Just throwing some ideas out.

K-TRON

 

K-Tron are you honestly suggesting that this is covered under warranty? If you are talking if deceit can be effective in getting this replaced under warranty I would say maybe. But warranty replacement in this case regardless of success is dishonest at the least and could be criminal depending on circumstance.

That said everybody do what you want but at least be aware of what I said.

 

Well, you can rma the harddrive. I dont see what is wrong with that. Its not like he/she was intentionally damaging it. The system took a hit, and the warranty from the harddrive manufacturer should still cover the drive. I dont think its criminal to rma a product unless you are physically damaging it.

maybe I am wrong, but I am just trying to help,

K-TRON

 

K-T I think you are. Physical damage (intent is irrelevant) which this is I doubt is covered. Anyone else know? I would accept input. Can one get away? Yes. Should one? No not if they have any sense of right and wrong. If a me first attitude? Then by all means go for it.

I am not trying to be critical or judgmental just lay it out. Everyone makes their own choices. And K-T I know you are just trying to help.

 

Well that was originally why i didn'ts end it.

my laptop is actually covered under an accedental damage warranty, but i only get to use that once, and replacing a hard drive is meager in terms of waht could happen...i thought about contacting hitachi, the maker of the drive, but the damage is my fault, its unintential, but it isn't really failure on part of the product, but the user.

which i dont think is covered under any waranty any where, unless exclusivly noted, like it is in my "Accidental Damage warranty" which was issued to me by ASUS...

I really appreciate your input K tron, I really havn't ever heard of any of those programs before, and I dont know anything about Linux or UNIX, but I guess I could google it, or hah, ask my professor at school, i understand he's a unix fan...

oh and, uhm...'she' .. please ^^;

As far as the offtopic discussion goes, I do beleive it's unethical to dishonestly claim a scenario to just to make good on a waranty. Bending the truth in some situations could be acceptable, but this was really my fault, the books were stacked improperly and the desk is very old and wobly...i bumped it while I was doing laundry and four of them fell and hit the darn thing. So...

I called ASUS, they said they'd replace it, but it would go under the accidental damage waranty, and I don't, as i said earlier, want to use that up just yet.

Besides, the replacement was only 70 bucks...

I really appreciate every ones input too, thank you so much

 

Guys, I'm gonna chime in and put in a few words.

In Muezick's scenario, we have no way to find out or prove that for sure if the drop of the books was the actual cause of the HDD failure. Also, HDD manufacturers guaranteed a certain amount of shock that can be tolerated. Now, was the shock from the books drop greater than the shock allowance? Nobody knows. When there is no sign of physical damage to the drive, it's really hard to say if the drive was actually physically damaged by the books or not. If you look at the way how the HDD failed right after got hit by the books, then yes it's easy to assume that the books have caused the damage, but that's just an assumption. I'm holding a hammer next to a broken object, does that automatically make me guilty?

I'm not saying who's right or wrong, in this case it can be looked at from either way.

 

hehe stewie makes a good point to.

the laptop if 8 months old though.

it had been acting sluggish, but I think thats just due to old OS syndrom. (the phenominon asociated with an old operating system thats had numerous, unprofessional modifications made to it, registry changes via installed programs, and the HDD being full all the time, tends to junk it out after a while and i've just been to lazy to clean it up with a fresh instal =p)

I still doubt that would cause the malfunction to my hard drive.

Maybe I will call Hitachi, it can't hurt to at least debate it, right?

hehe

 

what is moral and what is legal are two different things... i can see this from both sides of the issue, and will not tell someone else what to do when confronted with such an issue.

but in a similar circumstance, my father's HDD needed to be replaced because it quit working in exactly the manner described above. since i had no actual knowledge or proof of my father being abusive to the PC, i had no reservations in contacting the manufacturer and getting a replacement ADVANCE SHIPPED, the manufacturer was given my CC # to place a hold charge until i returned the defective unit. the drive was replaced under warranty and my CC was never charged anything. but if the manufacturer had done any testing and discovered that the defective drive was due to lack of care on the owner's part, they did have my CC# as a method of charging me for the part they shipped to me!

had i known forsure that the issue was caused by rough handling of the laptop, i would not have bothered to go thru the RMA procedure especially for an 80g hdd... having a semi-clean conscious is more valuable

 

Honestly, if it had been acting sluggish before, then it's really hard to say how the HDD has failed. 8 months old doesn't necessarily make the OS become sluggish, especially if you've maintain it properly, some people manage to mess up the OS in less than 24 hours. But of course, only you know what you have installed and done to the OS. If you know that you have maintained the OS quite well, then maybe the HDD was defective from the start and really starting to fail on its own. Personally, I've seen laptops/HDDs taking harder hit than from a few books falling onto it, and it still works perfectly fine afterward. Although I know HDDs can be quite sensitive when they're reading/writing. Anyway, if you do feel that it was caused by the books, then maybe you shouldn't go through the warranty hassle.

 

OK pp is no goodie two shoes! pp knows how to say things. pp just wants all to know? Does not want people being confused? pp might have a couple illegal mp3's on his system? pp does not talk about it. OP gave it up? Don't give it up! Sorry stew she gave it up, had she not? Well so be it.

 

And this guy has over 5000 posts?

Wow...


hehe!

Talk about picaso'ing the forums up !

 

bigozone & PP,

I believe you guys misunderstood what I was trying to say. I'm not telling her to lie and try to scam the warranty system. I'm just saying the books might not be the actual cause of the HDD failure.