Computer Portable Store

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 Portable Store 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 Portable Store Recent Stories from around the internet

computer portable store

UPEK, Inc., the global leader in biometric fingerprint security solutions, today announces the general availability of the Eikon To Go; a portable version of their award winning Eikon Digital Privacy Manager. The Eikon To Go is the first truly ...

UPEK Introduces Portable Fingerprint Reader - Forbes

The Information Commissioner's Office has found Virgin Media in breach of the Data Protection Act following the loss of an unencrypted CD containing the personal details of over 3,000 customers. The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) was alerted ...

Information Commissioner's Office forces Virgin to encrypt portable ... - Computer Weekly

EMERYVILLE, Calif., BUSINESS WIRE -- UPEK, Inc., the global leader in biometric fingerprint security solutions, today announces the general availability of the Eikon To Go; a portable version of their award winning Eikon Digital Privacy Manager. The ...

UPEK Introduces Portable Fingerprint ReaderEikon To Go (Photo ... - Consumer Electronics Net

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- To help combat a general decline in reading in the U.S., particularly among young people, Sony is spearheading a so-called "Reader Revolution" to spark the imaginations of young readers and engage the public in ...

Sony Starts a Reading Revolution - PR Newswire

REDMOND, Wash., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Microsoft Corp. today announced that Zune, the company's end-to-end music and entertainment service, will introduce the Zune "Gears of War(R) 2" Special Edition 120GB device with pre-orders going live ...

Zune Raises the Crimson Omen; Declare Your Loyalty to Delta Squad With ... - PR Newswire

London, 01st October 2008: SingStar®“will rock you” when, for the first-time ever, a series of special themed SingStar SongPacks launch in SingStore™. New from Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, SingStar SongPacks will feature five hit tracks ...

The legendary music of Queen hits SingStore™ on PS3™ - MCV

President of Sony's online arm says massively multiplayer online games for the publisher's portable are on the horizon. From its inception, the PlayStation Portable has been positioned as a multimedia device with nongaming functionality. But, thanks ...

SOE eying PSP MMOGs - Gamespot News

Strengthening its color lineup to support the growing color output needs of small office, workgroup and general office environments, Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leading provider of digital office imaging systems and solutions, today unveiled the new sleek ...

Canon's New Color imageRUNNER C1022 Series Targets Small Business ... - MSN MoneyCentral

Five years ago, Apple Computer Inc. was the first to put the two key pieces of the digital music puzzle together. It’s been reaping the rewards ever since. A revolution in music delivery ensued after Apple Inc. created the iTunes online music store ...

Facing the music - InternetRetailer.com

A legal fight erupted Tuesday over the ability of consumers to copy DVDs onto their computers, setting the stage for a new battle between Hollywood and a purveyor of technology that could alter how consumers watch movies at home. The six major ...