well i was using a laptop that hadnt been used very much in a year or two (it was new a year or two ago), and i noticed it got fairly hot pretty fast... well i was defragging the hard drive, and it just shut itself off, now the computer is saying that the harddrive is corrupt, and will NOT allow me to put a new copy of windows on it, it cannot read the hard drive, its a compaq presario 2100
has there been problems with these things overheating? any recalls i cannot find any good sources for this kind of info any help? its a very strange problem ive never heard of a laptop making the hard drive corrupt over a simple defraggins process, so i think the battery is over heating (its pretty hot)
any help?!!!! please!!!!!!!!!!!
Presario hd failed during defrag, now won't boot Puppy CD
plus i forgot to mention puppy keeps saying (when booting up live cd) that hda is (not sure exactly what it said but somethiong like this) hda has an unchangeable error, or hda unreadable and it kept trying to read it (wouldnt finish booting!! even though its suppose to boot intirely in ram!
what to do...
what to do...
defragging is probably more likely to corrupt the files on a hard drive than any other operation
some people are careful to never defrag the partition that they backup to, in case it corrupts the backup
it's always a good idea to scandisk / chkdsk a partition before defragging it
laptops have a reputation for getting hot, but hardware problems can cause it to get hotter than normal ... and if it gets too hot, it can crash, or just shut down completely ... if it's writing to the hard drive when it crashes, that can cause file system corruption
and Windows has a reputation for crashing
also, hard drives sometimes break and stop working
some people are careful to never defrag the partition that they backup to, in case it corrupts the backup
it's always a good idea to scandisk / chkdsk a partition before defragging it
laptops have a reputation for getting hot, but hardware problems can cause it to get hotter than normal ... and if it gets too hot, it can crash, or just shut down completely ... if it's writing to the hard drive when it crashes, that can cause file system corruption
and Windows has a reputation for crashing
also, hard drives sometimes break and stop working
Compaq - if less expensive model -may use lower quality M/Brd & BIOS
Whn the BIOS gets confused & cannot find inital O/Sys. load bytes - or "see" the hard drive contents -
can only output pre-set error Msg.s
All it knows -something failed.
Battery hot - may affect power supply unit - but not Hrd/Dr.
No AC alternate line source ?
Doesn't one of Pawed-casts mention "freezer" trick for H/Drives ? (laptops - internal access can be PITA)
Plse do NOT attempt bad-sector repairs on a mounted file system !
Use stand-alone rescue media ~
If Winxx install CD does not contain such utilities - or you neglected to backup:
There are dedicated rescue tools available free on-line
Ex : > RescueCD has been used to resurect a wiped MBR sector
-It re-built correct table data -wrote back new.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
http://www.911cd.net/
Linux "DD" can MT out entire contents to get back to pristine state
(NOT advised for faint_of_heart)
"Repairing" file systems often fail - Esp if the drive has been subsequently used - even if just "viewed"
Present contents get overwriten & time stamps altered
Forensic analysis demands taking a "frozen" snap of entire disc
("dd" can be useful - VERY DANGEROUS)
Defrag tools (Winxx) are unreliable - & Scandisk (the surface) takes forever
Marks bad sectors... then often STILL use them !
Re-formatting just re-sets flags that location is now useable.
Running Linux a journalled F/System is far more robust:
Which one to use is dabateble - more in view of user than factual.
An O/System running in RAM - the hard drive is not touched
except for persistent data storage.
Linux is not entirely immune to fragmentation -(non-contiguous writes)
But seldom affects user in any practical manner.
HTH best of luck
Whn the BIOS gets confused & cannot find inital O/Sys. load bytes - or "see" the hard drive contents -
can only output pre-set error Msg.s
All it knows -something failed.
Battery hot - may affect power supply unit - but not Hrd/Dr.
No AC alternate line source ?
Doesn't one of Pawed-casts mention "freezer" trick for H/Drives ? (laptops - internal access can be PITA)
Plse do NOT attempt bad-sector repairs on a mounted file system !
Use stand-alone rescue media ~
If Winxx install CD does not contain such utilities - or you neglected to backup:
There are dedicated rescue tools available free on-line
Ex : > RescueCD has been used to resurect a wiped MBR sector
-It re-built correct table data -wrote back new.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
http://www.911cd.net/
Linux "DD" can MT out entire contents to get back to pristine state
(NOT advised for faint_of_heart)
"Repairing" file systems often fail - Esp if the drive has been subsequently used - even if just "viewed"
Present contents get overwriten & time stamps altered
Forensic analysis demands taking a "frozen" snap of entire disc
("dd" can be useful - VERY DANGEROUS)
Defrag tools (Winxx) are unreliable - & Scandisk (the surface) takes forever
Marks bad sectors... then often STILL use them !
Re-formatting just re-sets flags that location is now useable.
Running Linux a journalled F/System is far more robust:
Which one to use is dabateble - more in view of user than factual.
An O/System running in RAM - the hard drive is not touched
except for persistent data storage.
Linux is not entirely immune to fragmentation -(non-contiguous writes)
But seldom affects user in any practical manner.
HTH best of luck
-
marksouth2000
- Posts: 622
- Joined: Wed 05 Apr 2006, 20:43
The most obvious interpretation is that your hard drive is totally hosed, and that you will need a new one, or run Puppy as multisession and don't use a HD.
The only thing that one can try is to download the drive manufacturer's utilities disk and boot from that. SOMETIMES they can repair errors that are down to bad formatting or stuff. (I have successfully repaired a Maxtor desktop drive like this.)
Unless that works, the data is gone as well. Even dd won't do anything useful on a nonfunctional disk.
Sage often recommends the freezer treatment as a way to get the disk to work long enough to recover data. You get at most one chance this way though. Search Sage's posts for details.
I forecast that you will end up with a new 2.5" disk, though. Seagate has the best warranty these days. Don't install Windows on it and you will be less likely to need the warranty.
All the best,
Mark
The only thing that one can try is to download the drive manufacturer's utilities disk and boot from that. SOMETIMES they can repair errors that are down to bad formatting or stuff. (I have successfully repaired a Maxtor desktop drive like this.)
Unless that works, the data is gone as well. Even dd won't do anything useful on a nonfunctional disk.
Sage often recommends the freezer treatment as a way to get the disk to work long enough to recover data. You get at most one chance this way though. Search Sage's posts for details.
I forecast that you will end up with a new 2.5" disk, though. Seagate has the best warranty these days. Don't install Windows on it and you will be less likely to need the warranty.
All the best,
Mark
well i was able to boot puppy in RAM
BUT puppy was unable to locate the HD, and the computer itself cannot locate the HD i believe its gone,
but the thing that gets me is how can a HD just stop working completely when your only doing a simple defrag, could it have been a virus i didnt notice?
but if it was a virus why couldnt i install windows back onto it? and why didnt puppy recognize the hard drive (its didnt even say there WAS a hard drive, neither did the CP itself in BIOS) bios said there was no hd / uncorrectable errors on HD
BUT puppy was unable to locate the HD, and the computer itself cannot locate the HD i believe its gone,
but the thing that gets me is how can a HD just stop working completely when your only doing a simple defrag, could it have been a virus i didnt notice?
but if it was a virus why couldnt i install windows back onto it? and why didnt puppy recognize the hard drive (its didnt even say there WAS a hard drive, neither did the CP itself in BIOS) bios said there was no hd / uncorrectable errors on HD
Can't quite totally agree on last view -
NTIM ~ have personally never seen one instance -nor noted in various Web discussions :
Any reported (verified) true hard drive failure -without ample prior indication - something was amiss
All have given many odd -ball glitches before it failed (silently and cool)
> Read or write attempts needing several tries - bad sector indications
Disconcerting noises - BIOS stumbling for no known reason at bootup
There are Winxx viruses targeting the BIOS
Have you tried resetting BIOS:
Remove the CMOS battery for a few minutes (ROM re-sets)
Suggestion - If seems necessary to remove the drive anyway - first try it in another computer
BTW a corrupted BIOS may be re-flashed
Here's hoping for a quick, simple in-expensive solution
NTIM ~ have personally never seen one instance -nor noted in various Web discussions :
Any reported (verified) true hard drive failure -without ample prior indication - something was amiss
All have given many odd -ball glitches before it failed (silently and cool)
> Read or write attempts needing several tries - bad sector indications
Disconcerting noises - BIOS stumbling for no known reason at bootup
There are Winxx viruses targeting the BIOS
Have you tried resetting BIOS:
Remove the CMOS battery for a few minutes (ROM re-sets)
Suggestion - If seems necessary to remove the drive anyway - first try it in another computer
BTW a corrupted BIOS may be re-flashed
Here's hoping for a quick, simple in-expensive solution
Last edited by Gn2 on Tue 24 Oct 2006, 05:07, edited 1 time in total.
It's interesting that the boot process recognizes the CD drive at all when the HD doesn't work. Sounds like your HD is still just functional enough that it looks like a hard disk to the motherboard, even though it can't r/w.
In my experience, many laptops have the hard disk as the master on the main IDE bus, and the optical disk as the slave. And this is hard-wired - you can't just move a cable and change a jumper like you can on a desktop box.
When no hard drive is present on my 5-yr-old Dell Inspiron 8100, and I try to boot from a CD, the BIOS howls because it can't find either an HD or an optical disk - it can't see the slave because the master isn't connected.
In my experience, many laptops have the hard disk as the master on the main IDE bus, and the optical disk as the slave. And this is hard-wired - you can't just move a cable and change a jumper like you can on a desktop box.
When no hard drive is present on my 5-yr-old Dell Inspiron 8100, and I try to boot from a CD, the BIOS howls because it can't find either an HD or an optical disk - it can't see the slave because the master isn't connected.
In case you haven't solved this yet...
And you think the hdd is toast anyway...
Can you boot from a floppy disk? If yes, you may want to try fdisk.
If fdisk can find the hdd, you can delete any partitions, fdisk /mbr and try starting from scratch.
And again, if you think the hdd is junk, there's some other stuff you can try.
I may get my fingers slapped, for telling you this next part...
Many people will tell you all sorts of technical jargon when you bring up this next subject and I'm not going to argue those points. I will tell you from personal experience of having done this several times that it has worked for me, more times than it has failed.
Many times in the past, I have had hdd's that were apparently junk, so I used an llf (low level format) on them and was able to revive them for quite some time afterward. I wouldn't recommend doing this, unless you are certain that the drive is screwed already.
The best I ever found was maxllf made for Maxtor drives, but it will work on anything I ever used it on.
It's hard to find online anymore, but I know just where to look if you want to give it a whirl.
And you think the hdd is toast anyway...
Can you boot from a floppy disk? If yes, you may want to try fdisk.
If fdisk can find the hdd, you can delete any partitions, fdisk /mbr and try starting from scratch.
And again, if you think the hdd is junk, there's some other stuff you can try.
I may get my fingers slapped, for telling you this next part...
Many people will tell you all sorts of technical jargon when you bring up this next subject and I'm not going to argue those points. I will tell you from personal experience of having done this several times that it has worked for me, more times than it has failed.
Many times in the past, I have had hdd's that were apparently junk, so I used an llf (low level format) on them and was able to revive them for quite some time afterward. I wouldn't recommend doing this, unless you are certain that the drive is screwed already.
The best I ever found was maxllf made for Maxtor drives, but it will work on anything I ever used it on.
It's hard to find online anymore, but I know just where to look if you want to give it a whirl.
If you find my posts helpful and you want to say thanks, please consider clicking the www button under my posts to visit my website.
may sound dumb
where do you type all of this? just curious as I wanted to do this for my HD but I can't get into windows at all is through puppy?GuestToo wrote:if it's a vfat (fat32) partition, you can type:
fsck.vfat /dev/hda1
if the partition is hda1 ... C:
type fsck.vfat --help for more information
sometimes trying to repair a corrupted file system can make it worse
there are programs that try to fix damaged partition tables and fat tables