Double hard drive failure!!

The Jeep · 30 Dec 2006

Hi - am sure this is not the first post on this subject, but anyway...

I have a Windows 2000 PC which has four IDE hard drives: one for OS , one for video, one for audio and one for general backup.

Recently I discovered that the latter two drives had stopped responding (when I try to access them I get the error message: "(Drive):\ is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable").

I have tried swapping around IDE cables, etc, but this does no good. The drives do seem to have become corrupted (seems odd, though, for them both to go down at more-or-less the same time - they are of different ages and different manufacturing).

Does anyone know of, firstly, any Windows utilities (DOS?) that I can use to try to recover them, or any Freeware products that could help? Finally, if there are any recommendations for recovery products from vendors?

Perhaps the drives can be fixed easily - I hope so, as there is, inevitably, critical data on them...

Cheers & Happy New Year!

Igorian · 30 Dec 2006

The Jeep said:
Does anyone know of, firstly, any Windows utilities (DOS?) that I can use to try to recover them, or any Freeware products that could help? Finally, if there are any recommendations for recovery products from vendors?

Do the drives still spin?

The Jeep said:
Perhaps the drives can be fixed easily - I hope so, as there is, inevitably, critical data on them...

Depends on the fault. Of course, you have it all backed up?

The Jeep said:
Cheers & Happy New Year!

u too.

breezer · 30 Dec 2006

Have you tied them in another pc? (do change the jumpers)

Oh and are they are on the same ide cable, and if so has it come slightly unplugged ? (i had that once)

Spark123 · 30 Dec 2006

Can the drives be seen in BIOS?

The Jeep · 30 Dec 2006

Yes, the drives appear in the BIOS and both seem to be spinning.

They also come up 'working normally' when I look at them in hardware manager.

Any ideas?

Igorian · 30 Dec 2006

The Jeep said:
Yes, the drives appear in the BIOS and both seem to be spinning.

They also come up 'working normally' when I look at them in hardware manager.

Any ideas?

Download the tools from the manufacturer site and scan them. I assume you have already tried scandisk?

eggplant · 31 Dec 2006

These both on the same IDE channel? could bee a dodgy ide controller or dodgy cable, however once its gone wrong, its much harder to put back as Im sure you realise. Have you tried booting from a cd such as knoppix, bart etc to see if the disk is readable there rather than through windows?

The Jeep · 31 Dec 2006

No I haven't tried Scandisk yet - is that a DOS utility? (believe it or not I used to know more about this in pre-Windows days, but have forgotten!).

The drives are on different IDE controllers (I have four available and have tried swapping them around and changing IDE cables but it doesn't help).

You say tools are available from the manufacturer's site? - I'll check that out.

Not familiar with knoppix or bart - are they freebie downloads?

Thanks.

Softus · 31 Dec 2006

This sounds like a filesystem problem, so FFS stop messing around with the hardware until you've eliminated all possible soft causes.

If you really do distrust the IDE controllers/cables on your machine then you need a known working machine and set of cables before you do anything else.

If you haven't used the Windows disk check utility then that would be the next thing to do.

eggplant · 31 Dec 2006

I agree, back to basics on this one.
to run a disk check, theres a couple of ways, probably the easiest is to go to your my computer, right click the drives in question one at a time, go to properties, then toold, then check now. tick fix file system probs for now.
See what happens from there.

The Jeep · 31 Dec 2006

I appreciate your help with this one, guys.

Yes, I found the check disk routine in Windows 2000 (as you say, right clicking on the disk icon and going into 'tools'). I checked a known good drive to see what is expected of this process. When I try to run it on one of the faulty drives, the program just closes. Doesn't hang up or anything, it just closes without doing anything.

There are, presumably, other software routines that can be applied here?

Igorian · 31 Dec 2006

What make of drives are they? I'll point you to the manufacturer diagnostics.

I have something that could possibly help you get the data back, but you will need to email me. Address is in my profile.

The Jeep · 31 Dec 2006

Thanks Igorian. They're both IBM DeskStars (I thought at first one of them was a different make).

I'll drop you an email shortly.

The Jeep · 31 Dec 2006

Sorry Igorian - how do I view your profile?!

Igorian · 31 Dec 2006

You want the drive fitness test tools from here.

My profile

Double hard drive failure!!

Igorian

breezer

Igorian

Igorian

Igorian

Similar threads