dead/dying WD disk

**ringo2143z** · October 18th, 2005, 04:04 PM

I recently revamped my girlfriend's old PC and gave it to her parents to use instead of their ancient machine. All I did was put in a new hard disk and shifted over their optical drives and installed Windows XP fresh. The disk is a Western Digital Cavier SE 80Gb 7200rpm 8mb Cache and is IDE. I've checked the connections and swapped round cables. All the other hardware worked perfectly before I upgraded for my girlfriend. I also know it's spyware/malware/virus free as I made sure they wouldn't get any of that crap by using the appropriate protection (virus scanner, firewall, antispyware apps).

It worked fine for a while (or the duration that I was staying there anyway) but now it has boot issues. When switched on, the PC boots to the white bar that shoots across the screen then hangs. It'll do this 3 or 4 times (with restarts/resets in between) before it eventually gives in and loads windows. The "Your computer didn't boot nicely" screen is shown in between each attempt.

From what I've read and heard about from friends, this sounds like a dying drive. RMAing it isn't a problem. What do you think? Any advice on how to test it to confirm my ideas without killing it completely - I need to ghost sometime?

I was gonna get some stuff off the WD website, but as I write this, it is down. I'm sure it'll come back...

**shamus** · October 18th, 2005, 08:07 PM

I'd run the WD diag software...

a repair install of XP might not be a bad idea if the HD passes the WD tests.

**ringo2143z** · October 19th, 2005, 03:16 AM

I'll get them to run the Diag software and see what happens. I hope it's bust cos that'll save a load of hassle figuring out what else is stopping it.

**ringo2143z** · October 21st, 2005, 10:31 AM

The tests passed (unfortunately). The question is though, did they pass because Windows had eventually managed to boot? Would it make a difference if they were run in DOS while the hard disk wasn't booting?

I've given them a list of things to try in the mean time running from chkdsk to just seeing if it boots to safemode.

**NooNoo** · October 21st, 2005, 11:57 AM

Originally Posted by ringo2143z

Would it make a difference if they were run in DOS while the hard disk wasn't booting?

Yes

**ringo2143z** · October 21st, 2005, 12:15 PM

short and sweet. I'll sort out a dos disk for them then.

**TripleRLtd** · October 21st, 2005, 02:09 PM

But wait, did you/they d/l and run windiag or data life guard diag which would boot off of a floppy?

**slgrieb** · October 21st, 2005, 03:19 PM

What TripleR is getting at is, by all means absolutely DO run the bootable diagnostics. WD has a utility to create this disk, and you can download it or if you have a retail drive, the program should be on the CD that was in the box.

Boot from the diskette and skip the quick test and just run the full test. If you just bought the drive and it is defective, you should be able to return it to the vendor rather than WD.

**Garak** · October 22nd, 2005, 04:29 AM

If its passed without any problems - it could be a flakey PSU giving you the problems. get them to disconnect one or both optical drives and see how it runs for a couple of days.

**ringo2143z** · October 24th, 2005, 08:12 AM

Points noted. I'll get a floppy sorted out and get them to try the computer with the optical drives detached as well. Thanks. I'll report back as soon as I know more.

**ringo2143z** · November 2nd, 2005, 02:37 PM

Ran the WD tests and the drive passed with flying colours both while it's being bad and after it's booted to Windows. Disconnecting the optical drives didn't help either. Any other creative suggestions?

I'm heading there tomorrow so I'm gonna try a repair install of XP and see if that works out. If I see any new ideas on here before then, I'll try them too.

Thanks so far guys!

**slgrieb** · November 2nd, 2005, 04:20 PM

One obvious thing to do is boot from the XP CD, enter the Recovery Console, and run chkdsk /r which will attempt recovery of corrupted system files as well as bad sectors (which Data Lifeguard would have done if it found any).

When chkdsk has done its thing, reboot and see what happens. If the system is still screwy, I would look at memory or the mainboard as the next likely candidates.

**ringo2143z** · November 2nd, 2005, 04:40 PM

Checkdisk was run previously (by ticking the boxes in Windows and allowing a restart to do it's thing) and came up with no errors or problems - I'll try it again though.

I was planning on running SFC eventually tomorrow and also maybe writing a new boot record to the disk or repairing the old one. I had also considered running a memory test on the system although there should be nothing wrong with the hardware as the only new part is the hard disk and everything else worked fine before the refurb.

**ringo2143z** · November 5th, 2005, 12:06 PM

Got it working for the moment. Tried a chkdsk /r, fixboot, fixmbr and then decided on a repair install. Seems to work ok at the moment from what I hear which is nice. Ticks something off my to do list.