Hard drive failure - diagnostics completed - now what?

robinboulder · 09-30-2007, 12:54 PM

My Toshiba Satellite (M105-S3051) cannot start from the hard drive (C): the message

"A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl + Alt +Del to restart"

pops up.

I used a number of diagnostic methods, including Norton Systemworks - booting from the CD drive. Also tried installing WIndows Professional. Neither DOS through Norton nor the Windows installer could get access to the C drive...

Which is strange, because on initial start-up, I can hear the C drive clicking... also, Toshiba's Recovery CD accesses the C drive but would destroy all data on the drive & restore it to factory condition.

I wonder if anyone can suggest a program that would solve the problem of accessing the drive, just to get the data off.

Cheers!

Phatsacks · 09-30-2007, 01:04 PM

Clicking...

About 1 loud click per second?

If so, then yeah, you need a new HD.

Scruge · 09-30-2007, 01:30 PM

Quote: Originally Posted by robinboulder

My Toshiba Satellite (M105-S3051) cannot start from the hard drive (C): the message

"A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl + Alt +Del to restart"

pops up.

I used a number of diagnostic methods, including Norton Systemworks - booting from the CD drive. Also tried installing WIndows Professional. Neither DOS through Norton nor the Windows installer could get access to the C drive...

Which is strange, because on initial start-up, I can hear the C drive clicking... also, Toshiba's Recovery CD accesses the C drive but would destroy all data on the drive & restore it to factory condition.

I wonder if anyone can suggest a program that would solve the problem of accessing the drive, just to get the data off.

Cheers!

Try OnTrack Easyrecovery. It may take awhile, 1-30 hours, but it should be able to recover your data. I wouldn't recommend using the drive as a boot drive again. Most likely was damaged from shock.

Phatsacks · 09-30-2007, 01:54 PM

OnTrack or any other most likely won't work at all since he can't even get XP to install.

They will just keep coming up with unreadable sectors (most likely)

marshallh · 09-30-2007, 02:21 PM

GRC's SpinRite
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

'nuff said.

robinboulder · 09-30-2007, 02:27 PM

Thanks all of you - ia m now freezing the HD.

"Clicking...

About 1 loud click per second?

If so, then yeah, you need a new HD"

About clicking: it's the constant "microclicking" that I hear, at a very high rate. It sounds normal. BUT - at startup, I hear a couple of "clunck"s from the hard drive - as if some arm was loose in there.