Computer Cases

Hard drive failure. What I did

Yesterday I had to change my hard drive and had a few issues that I was able to fix.

The problems started in the morning when my wife called me and told me that the computer would not boot. We have been having trouble with our hard drive for a while now and I was able to fix each time by just reseting the PC. This time though the computer was not seeing the hard drive. Using tools and knowledge that I had I had to do the following:

Install new hard drive

First of all I had to install the new hard drive. I was able to do this by disconnecting my CDR and leaving myDVD drive, two old hard drives in the machine, plus a new 80 gig drive with a 16 meg cache. I was unsuccessful at loading Windows though as I kept getting an error as the Windows setup was starting, after loading the drivers I would get an error that it could not load the setup. I switched to my CDR from the DVD drive and had no problems.

Setup Windows

I successfully did a quick format of the new drive (thanks for that new feature Windows XP) and successfully loaded Windows XP. This is pretty basic as I use a CD that not only has Windows XP on it but also has Service Pack 2 for XP slipstreamed onto it.

Rebuild hard drive partition table

After I booted to Windows I saw that my old drive was not showing up as a drive or a partition. If I right clicked on the partition in Disk Management it knew that the drive existed but could no longer find a partition on it. Windows Disk Management said that the drive was healthy, My first attempt was to create a partition but not to format the partition as I did not want to lose the data for good. I fought with this for a couple of hours as I did not back up lately and the wife would kill me if I lost all of her data. In the end I was able to use Test Disk from the Filesystem tools of the Dos Ultimate Boot Disk. It ends up that the partition table had a start but not an end and the program was able to fix this….whew I would have been in trouble….

Migrate Windows and Office data

After I had the old drive back I went into the BIOS and chose to boot from that drive. I was able to boot to the old Windows XP installation easily enough and did not want to keep any of the data there but thought it would be a good idea to transfer my Windows settings using the file and settings transfer wizard in Windows. I saved the settings using the wizard and chose this as the old computer and in the destination I chose a folder I created on the new hard drive called “transfer files”. I then decided to transfer only my settings as I knew that I was going to have to reload my software and would be manually copying over the file structure from the old drive to the new drive.

I also moved all of my settings for MS Office using the Save my Settings Wizard from the MS Office 2003 tools section. I was able to copy the settings, which come across as an OPS file to the same place as my Windows Transfer Files and Settings.

After I had moved the settings and files over I rebooted and went back into the BIOS and changed my first boot to the new hard drive and it’s windows XP installation. I was very happy to see that after running the wizrds for transfering the settings and after reloading MS Office 2003 I was able to move over my mail folder and saw all of my email, contacts, and best of all my email addresses (Still had to fill in the passwords for email but that’s OK). After a relogon I also had all of my desktop settings back includig the background picture of my daughter and the animated Pingu cursors.

Copy data from bad drive

Next I just did a blanket move of all of the files from the old hard drive to new into a new folder that I created in the root of the drive. I did this simply to save time as I am not sure about the stability of the old hard drive and fear that I will lose it again.

Reload software

I have started reloading software but as usual I am going to be slow about the move this time. I will install some of my favorite freewares and will install Streets and Trips, Adobe Acrobat, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop Elements and that’s it.

I have roughly followed about half of my Reloading Windows tutorial but since I have both drives functioning at the moment I have tried to cut some corners and make this work well as well as getting my wife up and running quickly for her work stuff this morning.

Computer Cases stuff to buy

Pal Pc Tracker - Stops Computer Theft!
Computer software that allows you to find your Pc anywhere in the world if it's ever lost or stolen!

How To Make Money Working From Home!
A practical, Step-By-Step guide to start making money on the Internet using your computer!

Cleaning Computers - Secrets Exposed!
How To Start Your Own Profitable Computer Cleaning Business - Step By Step Business Kit!

Computer Cases Recent Stories from around the internet

computer cases

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investors scrambled to assess potential losses from an alleged $50 billion fraud by Bernard Madoff, a day after the arrest of the prominent Wall Street trader. Prosecutors and regulators accused the 70-year-old former chairman of ...

Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud hits other investors - Washington Post

Search for products within our product comparison service. - All categories - Blu-ray drives Camcorders Computer cases CPUs Digital cameras Digital set top boxes (DVB-C) Digital set top boxes (DVB-S) Digital set top boxes (DVB-T) Digital TV adapters ...

Search for products - Afterdawn.com

Further evidence for the growing popularity of netbooks and mobile computing in general has arrived with the latest sales figures from Displaysearch which has revealed that worldwide quarter-on-quarter netbook sales jumped 160% by the end the third ...

Attractive netbooks batter iPhones - Computer Weekly

Fred Jones made sure Santa had a secure perch far above the mall parking lot outside Albertson's. Pahrump residents proved once again they are a generous bunch. Over the weekend cases of macaroni and cheese, canned vegetables and soup were among ...

Food drive fills pantry - Pahrump Valley Times

Q: I am resisting the purchase of a new laptop with much needed hardware upgrades. My concern is moving current programs/software etc. to the new unit. What can be done to download everything and install it in the new unit? - Richard A: Your question ...

Date Doctors: Shifting data from old to new computer can cost extra - East Valley Tribune

A Twin Cities Sheriff's deputy who killed a man with his squad car in 2007 now faces new charges. Deputy Joshua James Williams faces third degree driving while impaired and open bottle charges. If convicted, Williams faces up to two years in prison ...

Dakota Co. deputy charged, case prompts investigation - KSTP

It seems that no matter what illegal activity is pursued, whether it is pornography, kidnapping, murder, or even terrorism, the so-called criminal masterminds leave a winding but traceable trail of related computer data linking these perpetrators to ...

Computer Crime: Forensic Device Allows Investigators Access To ... - Post Chronicle

The Member Center is where you can become a ‘member’ of this site. To become a member, create an account by entering your email address and zip code, and by selecting a password. After you’ve become a member, you can go to the Member Center and ...

Member Center Frequently Asked Questions - KMPH.com

The courthouse in Fort Lauderdale will re-open Monday after suffering from a flood last weekend. The types of cases that will move forward and services available will depend on cleanup over the weekend, but as of Friday administration announced that ...

Broward courthouse partly open Monday - Miami Herald

Skip to main content . Some of the advertisers and Web analytics firms used on this site may place "tracking cookies" on your computer. We are telling you about them right upfront, and we want you to know how to get rid of these tracking cookies if ...