Internet Computer 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.

Internet Computer 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!

Internet Computer Store Recent Stories from around the internet

internet computer store

Click the "Get the story in iPod format" button above. You'll be prompted to save a file. Save it to your computer, and unzip it. It should create a folder called "The Washington Times". Connect your iPod to your computer and mount it as an external ...

Download this story to your iPod - The Washington Times

Apple, with its one-stop App Store for the iPhone, made downloading programs like games and utilities for the device easy by using the phone itself. Google is doing the same thing with the new Android Market for Android phones, and next March ...

It's an 'app store' world for smartphones - MSNBC

Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison, a vocal skeptic of cloud computing, calls the concept "complete gibberish." (Justin Sullivan - Getty Images) IBM dubbed it "on-demand computing." Others have called it "grid computing" and "software as a service ...

A Mostly Cloudy Computing Forecast - Washington Post

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it was scaling back the growth of its namesake discount stores in the U.S. while focusing on remodeling existing locations as the world's largest retailer navigates through a tough consumer spending climate. Eduardo Castro ...

Wal-Mart scales back store growth - Los Angeles Times

Add iPhone control, Last.fm, and an expanded Internet radio roster to Sonos' bag of tricks. Starting Tuesday, a free application available at the iTunes App Store will allow iPhone and iPod Touch owners to control their Sonos digital audio system via ...

Sonos adds free iPhone app, Last.fm, expanded Internet radio options - CNET News

Friday's fire heavily damaged the Riceville True Value Hardware store. The former opera house upstairs was destroyed. (JEFF HEINZ/The Globe Gazette) RICEVILLE — Two dozen turkeys, cooked and prepared for a church supper, were destroyed in Riceville ...

No comments posted. - Globe Gazette

Last year Microsoft was promising great advances in the way we use our computers thanks to Vista, a new version of its Windows system. Just 18 months later, however – and after a year of intense criticism – the company today unveiled its ...

Windows 7 gets personal - Guardian Unlimited

Miami — TigerDirect , the IT and A/V multichannel chain, has opened a new concept store within the Miami market that brings the online shopping experience to a brick-and-mortar format. The store, a CompUSA location acquired from the former PC chain ...

TigerDirect Opens New Concept CompUSA Store - Consumer Electronics Net

LOS ANGELES--After years of questioning the value of Net-based productivity applications, Microsoft confirmed Tuesday that it will offer new versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint that can run from within a standard Web browser. As first reported by ...

Beyond Binary - CNET News

SAN JOSE, Calif., Oct. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- TigerLogic Corporation (NASDAQ: TIGR) , today introduced a new ChunkIt! ( http://www.getchunkit.com ) search feature, "Chunk Store", a one-click method to conveniently search for and retrieve key ...