Hard drive failure

I'm not sure if this thread would be more suited to the OS forum. I'll try to keep this short.

My eight month old DV2-1024 fell off my counter(about a 3.5ft drop). For a day or two after that event the hard drive experienced two or three random failures, but everytime it failed it would boot normally right after that.

For the past three weeks since that fall, the laptop has been working perfectly normal, but last night I randomly got the blue screen of death. The first boot after the BSOD came up with a "Operating system cannot be found" error. I've been furiously trying to get it boot up again, but it boots to the log in screen and freezes. Since the BSOD occured there has also been a strange clicking sound from the hard drive.

Is there anyway to retrieve information off the hard drive since I didn't bother backing up the last three weeks of documents since the fall?
What is the most likely problem with the hard drive?
Is there anything I can do to salvage the hard drive or computer without having to send it in?

 

Hard drive is dying. Stop using it.

Replace the HDD with a new one, and if you want your old data, use an external enclosure or SATA to USB converter on your old HDD and cross your fingers.

Just for the future, whenever you expect that your HDD is dying, IMMEDIATELY back it up.

 

Not making a up since the first failure was a huge lapse in judgment on my part.

I booted up the dv2 for one last try in safe mode. It actually logged me in, but froze a minute or so after loading my desktop.

I took out the drive, popped it into my enclosure and plugged it into my m50. The drive is working and the computer is picking it up as a generic usb storage device(in the safely remove hardware section), but it does not show up in "my computer" and I can't access the drive.

Do I need to change anything to get this to show up?

 

Run SpinRite on it. That's pretty much the only recovery program that actually does what it claims. It may even return your hard drive to full working condition.

It looks like you lost the partition table. Don't try anything else, it'll make your data REALLY hard to get to. Run SpinRite and keep your fingers crossed.

 

So I got SpinRite. Booted it off a usb drive two times. The first time it was sitting at the "discovering system mass storage device" screen for two hours before I shut down and checked to see that the hard drive was properly seated in the DV2. I booted up the computer from the hard drive and it wouldn't come on so I tried it in the enclosure again as a test. It is still working, but the DV2 fails to recognize.

The second SpinRite test is in process right now, but it's stuck on the "discovering system mass storage device" screen. It's been like this for about an hour and a half now.

I'm not sure if this is normal and if it's supposed to take this long to find the HDD. It's also wierd why my m50 will recognize the existence of the hard drive, but the DV2 doesn't. I'm not sure what to do now.



Also in the initialization for SpinRite it comes up with a "Partitions cannot be found" message, so you guys were 100% correct with the partition table being lost.

 

SpinRite tends to flop with some SATA drives. The discovery phase is supposed to take about 10 minutes on some drives, but not more. Put the drive in the enclosure and in a desktop computer. Then set SATA mode to IDE/Legacy in the BIOS. Boot SpinRite again. It should work now.

 

How do I do that? In the DV2 bios, or the BIOS on the desktop? I went into the BIOS on the desktop, but wasn't quite sure where to go

edit: desktop as in the desktop computer I had the enclosure plugged into

 

I picked up a USB/SATA adapter and tried that in a desktop computer, my m50, and the DV2. It doesn't seem to work.

It picks up the name of the drive in the Safely Remove Hardware, but not in my computer. The drive still works, albeit, with the clicking noise. SpinRite picks up everything but this hard drive.

I'm not good with the technical side of computers. Is there anyway to recover this drive, or is the partition table f'ed beyond repair.

I tried doing a straight boot with the drive on the DV2 again and it came up with three consecutive warnings on the same boot screen.

"InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 06: with calculated values 948-75-32 instead of 956-128-32"

"Error reading partition table drive 01 sector 0"

"can't get drive parameters for drive 02"

Please help

 

I made a thread on this a few days ago in the HP forum. Figured I might get some more responses from here.

Here is the link to the other thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5920349#post5920349

Long story short my laptop fell off my counter. The hard drive failed the next day or so, but then began to work perfectly again. About three weeks later I got the BSOD and "operating system cannot be found" message.

I was dumb enough to have only done a light backup since the first fail, and I really need the rest of the contents off this drive, especially school docs from the past three weeks.


I've tried all the suggestions from the other thread(except setting SATA to IDE mode since I don't know where to go in the BIOS). It's all the same story. The computer picks up the drive in Safely remove hardware , but fails to recognize it in my computer. SpinRite recognizes everything but this hard drive.

I tried one last straight boot from the hard drive in the DV2 and got three consecutive messages on the same boot screen.

"InitDiskWARNING: using suspect partition Pri:1 FS 06: with calculated values 948-75-32 instead of 956-128-32"

"Error reading partition table drive 01 sector 0"

"can't get drive parameters for drive 02"

Is there anyway to recover this drive, or is the partition table f'ed beyond repair.



I have definitely learned a valuable lesson about consistently backing up hard drives.

 

You can try putting it in the fridge when it is cold take it out plug it into a Controller bridge then start ripping the data off the harddisk (Heard of this method but never actually tried it) if this doesn't help probably only a professional data recovery can help you.

 

Can my USB/SATA adaptor or hard drive enclosure act as a makeshift controller bridge?

 

Yes, just make sure the OS is not running off the going to fail disk.

 

You can not make 2 threads on the same subject in 2 different forums. That is called cross-posting and is against the forum rules. So please continue discussion in your other thread. If you would like your other thread moved to this forum, then please use the report button and we will move it for you.

 

sigh. Still didn't work


I'm guessing the partition table is beyond repair

 

I recall a program I once used that could read the data off a hard drive with a corrupt partition table. It was a free, boot-from-cd DOS-looking program.. can ANYONE think of what I'm talking about? It's driving me nuts..

 

Is the program SpinRite?

 

Hey I'm really sorry to hijack your thread but I hope you don't mind if I ask about the same thing. Didn't wanna create a whole new thread...

Is my HDD failing??

It says the error is [05] Reallocated Sectors Count: 2

 

Reallocated sectors are sectors that have been moved because the original sector is going bad. This does not necessarily mean your entire HDD is failing, as spot damage can occur, but it is something to watch out for, as it certainly could be a sign of impending total failure. It sounds like it's time to backup your drive as a precaution, and keep an eye on it for the next few weeks to see if any more reallocated sectors show up.

 

So, suppose an important original sector(i.e. partition table) has gone bad

How can the rest of the drive be accessed since the drive parameters can no longer be found?

 

It is called TestDisk. You can download the program for windows here:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download

I guess it wasn't a boot-from-cd program...

I believe what I did was stick the hdd in another machine as the slave, and run the program from the good computer. Then (I can't remember how exactly), I was able to see all of the data on the drive and copy it to the good computer.
Good luck

 

Ok thanks, yeah I'm gonna do a backup later today. I'm actually upgrading to an SSD later today but I was planning on using this drive in an enclosure as my backup. Hope it doesn't go bad

 

So I tried testdisk, but to no avail. I also tried freezing the hard drive in my freezer, which removed the clicking sound, but it had the same problem as the other tries.

I've accepted that the drive is toast, and only professional help may be able to retrieve my info on it.

Thanks to everyone for your help.

 

did you tried using hdd regenerator?