G2 week of 10/3

[Phaul]

My hard drive decided to die out on me late last night, so it's a high probability that I won't be able to make it to raids this week. I'll try to salvage one from friends, but I'm thinking I still won't be able to make it.

That said, anyone know if it's definitely my hard drive that's malfunctioned? I can boot past BIOS and I can even feel my hard drive power up when I hold it, but after that, the OS loading screen doesn't show up and my system restarts itself. Past the first boot, my hard drive isn't listed as a connected SATA device anymore. I tried switching SATA ports on my mobo, switched cables with my CD drive, even tested out different SATA power plugs from my PSU and it all does the same thing. If I try to do a Windows repair or format, it says there are undetected hard drives. Before this whole thing, for the past 2 weeks my computer was taking a little longer to boot to the desktop than usual and there were rare occasions where everything on screen and audio would stutter for half a second in intervals.

[WarmApplePie]

Have Ryan help you. He helped me figure my HDD problem out. It had something to do with Ultimate Boot CD.

[draven]

it sounds like your hard drive might be corrupted. the best way to confirm that is to scan it with a diagnostics tool, which usually can be found on the manufacturer's web site. before you format it or anything, you may want to see if you can plug it into another computer and try to get your stuff off it. if your hard drive was partitioned at all, it is likely that only the system partition is corrupted and everything else should be fine.

also, if you've any familiarity with linux (or desire to learn / try something different) you can download ubuntu and create a "live cd" that will run the entire operating system off the cd, which is another good way of isolating the hard drive to see if it is the issue. you should also be able to get your files off the hard drive with this as well.
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/ubuntu/download

[Phaul]

I'm downloading the Ultimate Boot CD right now. It has the diagnostics tool for my hard drive and seems nice to have in handy for the future.

I just hope that I can recover it by the end of the day .

[drp]

I'm downloading the Ultimate Boot CD right now. It has the diagnostics tool for my hard drive and seems nice to have in handy for the future.

I just hope that I can recover it by the end of the day .

be careful which tools you use, as far as I know the only tool I would use for hard drives off the UBCD is the hitatchi drive fitness, it runs on all types of hard drives and is not destructive, some of those will delete everything off the hard drive as they test, if it passes the test, you could try getting a windows 7 / vista / xp (what ever your using) cd and running the repair option. some times you will have an operating system file that becomes corrupt after an application is added / removed, a virus or a hard boot or power outage the repair will get the operating system files back to how they where orginaly

[draven]

be careful which tools you use, as far as I know the only tool I would use for hard drives off the UBCD is the hitatchi drive fitness, it runs on all types of hard drives and is not destructive, some of those will delete everything off the hard drive as they test

this. while that cd will be good for accessing the hard drive and seeing if that is the problem, there are also a lot of ways to destroy your windows install with it. my apologies for forgetting to include that disclaimer