HDD problem. Need some answers

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My friends computer just went. Nothing on the screen, won’t boot etc. I have checked memory, vid card, etc. I know it must be the hdd because I put one of my hdd in and it started to boot. Different drivers so some things would not work but that showed the vid card worked along with everything else except the hdd. My problem is the hdd works when I attach it to my computer. I can see all the folders etc. I tried to clone and see if that would work but when I put it into their computer it would not boot. When I did a clone one screen came up and said it could not read some sector. What can I do now that the old hdd is cloned? I did keep all info on the old hdd also. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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My friends computer just went. Nothing on the screen, won’t boot etc. I have checked memory, vid card, etc. I know it must be the hdd because I put one of my hdd in and it started to boot. Different drivers so some things would not work but that showed the vid card worked along with everything else except the hdd. My problem is the hdd works when I attach it to my computer. I can see all the folders etc. I tried to clone and see if that would work but when I put it into their computer it would not boot. When I did a clone one screen came up and said it could not read some sector. What can I do now that the old hdd is cloned? I did keep all info on the old hdd also. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

ingeborgdot,
Hello, Just a “WAG” (wild a** guess) but i would try to get into the “BIOS” screen (boot menu) at boot time and see if you could boot up from there (with the cloned HD) …. (select the appropriate hard drive) Then if you can boot up, check the “bios” setup . On my “PC” i hit Esc to get into “boot menu” and then F-10 to access the “boot configure screen” Hope this is of some help . Regards Fred

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It may just be a damaged boot file or MBR. So I suggest booting into the WIndows installation disk and running the Recovery Console and choose REPAIR.

Terry

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Besides booting into the install disk what procedure should I follow when I get in. I have never had to do this before so just help me out a little. Thanks.

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Besides booting into the install disk what procedure should I follow when I get in. I have never had to do this before so just help me out a little. Thanks.

ingebrogdot,
Hello, I will try to explain .. I apologize for not making myself clear in my reply. We here, most of us ( @ Windows Blah Blah) are all in process of learning and don’t know what level anyone else is at. ( me I’m a basic noob)…..so here goes. You don’t use the install disk to get into the “Bios Screen” ( basic input /output system blah blah) When you boot up your system the screen (first one) that you see (with the options ) press this or that to enter the “BIOS” is what you need to access. My thought is that when you cloned the HD your friends PC now does not recognize any longer the the “new” (yours) hard drive as the default. so….. what i am suggesting is that you first try to enter the boot menu ( my system hit Esc when booting) ….. it will show all hard drives present …. select your HD and hit enter . if all goes well it the PC will now boot. If this works , then you need to re-configure the the boot priority ( my system F-10) set the cloned disk as the first to boot,(using screen options) so now the PC will know which device to boot from (think this has to do with the disk signature) Hope this is a better explanation.( I have had many no boot situations just “blinking cursor” after the “BIOS”) …. or as best as i can “Splain it to me Lucy” Regards Fred

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Actually, I know about the bios. I have checked in the bios and it sees both of the hdd that I put in but when I click on the enter (auto) the bios freezes and I have to hard reboot. I really think the MBR is bad. I figured out how to do a repair again. I have not done it forever and just had to think. I did a repair and it went through all the process but when it went to restart it just goes black after it goes to W XP Pro the HDD starts it’s process and just stops. Black screen and no more.

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Actually, I know about the bios. I have checked in the bios and it sees both of the hdd that I put in but when I click on the enter (auto) the bios freezes and I have to hard reboot. I really think the MBR is bad. I figured out how to do a repair again. I have not done it forever and just had to think. I did a repair and it went through all the process but when it went to restart it just goes black after it goes to W XP Pro the HDD starts it’s process and just stops. Black screen and no more.

ingeborgdot,
Hello, well “ya got me stumped” My only question is if you can put the “cloned” HD in your PC and it “boots” …… how then can the MBR be faulty? (and you have tried the “BIOS” thing in the other PC) My thought now is that there might be some problem in the PC itself ? ..,.bad power supply ? Don’t know . Hope someone else can “jump” in here and save the day . Regards Fred

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I did not say my cloned one boots, I said the cloned on did not boot. I tried another hdd from another computer that had an os on it and it booted not the cloned one. Here is what I said:

My problem is the hdd works when I attach it to my computer. I can see all the folders etc. I tried to clone and see if that would work but when I put it into their computer it would not boot. When I did a clone one screen came up and said it could not read some sector. What can I do now that the old hdd is cloned?

Sorry for my lack of writing properly.

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I did not say my cloned one boots, I said the cloned on did not boot. I tried another hdd from another computer that had an os on it and it booted not the cloned one. Here is what I said:

My problem is the hdd works when I attach it to my computer. I can see all the folders etc. I tried to clone and see if that would work but when I put it into their computer it would not boot. When I did a clone one screen came up and said it could not read some sector. What can I do now that the old hdd is cloned?

Sorry for my lack of writing properly.

ingeborgdot,
OK, i think i get it now … you say “the hdd works on your computer, (not in boot mode) i can see all the folders etc.”Question can the “clone” if you connect it to your PC Boot? (connect it up and use the bios menu to select it to boot from.) if it won’t then i agree… that the MBR is damaged. At that point not knowing if you have an imaging software to do the repair from , i don’t know how to recover the boot file (repair) from within “windows” ( i use Acronis 2010) I think there are several options …. do a search on MBR repair on this forum …or maybe some one can give you some more precise help. Regards Fred

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I did not say my cloned one boots, I said the cloned on did not boot. I tried another hdd from another computer that had an os on it and it booted not the cloned one. Here is what I said:

My problem is the hdd works when I attach it to my computer. I can see all the folders etc. I tried to clone and see if that would work but when I put it into their computer it would not boot. When I did a clone one screen came up and said it could not read some sector. What can I do now that the old hdd is cloned?

Sorry for my lack of writing properly.

If you have an OS disc (win vista/win 7 etc) you can put that in drive and try rebooting (ensure that in bios the CD is first boot option). When get message ‘boot from cd-press any key’ or similar press any key (If you have a key called ‘any’ that is 🙂 ), once gone through the choices of keyboard language choose ‘Repair computer’ option and select first choice to do start up repair. This might fix any MBR problems and allow it to boot.
Hope this is helpful.

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Already tried and already found out it does not work. I tried it several times to make sure.

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Go into bios and disable the “fast or quick boot” option.
Make sure all the hardware is well seated and cabling is secure.
Do all of this from his computer, not yours.

When I did a clone one screen came up and said it could not read some sector.

when booting with the recovery disc, see if you can get yourself to a command prompt and run chkdsk on the drive in question.
chkdsk C: /R (or whatever drive letter the drive in question has).

Look through these articals as well, they may helpfull too.
Langa Letter: XP’s Little-Known ‘Rebuild’ Command
Langa Letter: The OS Inside The OS (Recovery Console)
Langa Letter: A Must-Have Repair And Recovery Tool

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It sounds as if the drive is in the process of dying. If you cloned it and saved the data anyway, at most I would try a full reformat of the drive in question. The format process may report bad sectors, which would itself give you a solid clue as to what is happening.

If you do a full low-level format and it works, then a high level format and that works, you may simply have had a bad write in a critical area at some point–which might point to intermittent problems elsewhere in the system. I have seen old power supplies cause such things in the past, for example, as could an intermittent short in the mother board circuitry somewhere.

If both low-level and high-level formats have gone smoothly and nothing has shown up as being a problem at that point, you can try reloading the OS and drivers, then the data and being back where you were before the hassles…but with a clean disk.

Note: don’t “clone” the disk again, as any faulty data will be faulty once more. Copy the relevant data files instead.

All of this said, disks are cheap enough today that I would seriously consider replacing it and start from the ground up with a new disk.

David

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