[ale] OT. Dead harddrive on laptop

Wed Jan 25 00:13:41 EST 2012

Cornelius,

Most likely it is the hard drive itself, though it could be a BIOS issue
(in times past you wouldn't be able to boot if your CMOS battery failed
because the drive parameters stored in the BIOS were lost, but that was
resolved many years ago with PNP by having the BIOS poll the drive for the
parameters), since that is the moving part and those are what generally
fail. If you suspect the controller, you could shuck out the drive and put
it in an external USB enclosure and test on another machine to verify that
it is not anything else with this laptop that is causing you grief.

Assuming it is the hard drive, it **should** be a SATA drive, but if much
more than 4 or 5 years old, it could be an IDE  drive. If SATA, you can get
a new 500GB drive from NewEgg for ~ $100 to $120, or a 320GB for pretty
much the same price, if you prefer. Your timing is bad on this as hard
drives have gone up considerably in price since the flood in Thailand, but
still 500GB 2.5" drive for less than $150 delivered isn't bad compared to
what you would have paid for one that size just 2-3 years ago.

Someone posted about 7.2K 5 year warranty drives and yes, those are pretty
much gone away. You only get the 5 year warranty on Enterprise Class Drives
and "you gets what you pays for", as they say. But honestly folks, how can
you expect the corporapist drive manufacturers to stay in business while
selling a 3TB hard drive for ~ $150 retail (prior to the flood) and cover
it for 5 or even 3 years. We all know that drives are generally MUCH more
reliable than they were back in the MFM and RLL days not to mention BIGGER,
FASTER and CHEAPER. So go cry in your beer if you can't find a 5 yr
warranty drive for less than $300 now after the flood. But it is still
pretty damn cheap for what you get with a 1 year warranty even after the
flood.

BTW for you Seagate lovers/haters among us, they just recently agreed to
buy the Samsung HDD business. I don't think the deal has closed yet, but
probably won't be wrong. My guess is that Samsung didn't have good
contracts for the parts that are in shortage since the flood and they are
going to concentrate on SSDs, but I didn't actually read anything on that.

Regards,
Greg Clifton

On Tue, Jan 24, 2012 at 10:57 PM, Ron Frazier <atllinuxenthinfo at c3energy.com
> wrote:

> Cornelis,
>
> Just to clarify a bit.  I didn't realize an external drive was under
> consideration.  I guess I didn't read your post fully.
>
> Regarding the internal drive.  If it is mechanically damaged, or has a
> bad controller, etc., no software will fix it.  However, computers often
> fail to boot because some data that they're trying to read during boot
> is corrupted.  If a critical file has been deleted or something,
> Spinrite wouldn't be able to fix that.  However, in many cases, the
> files are there, but parts of the sector have been corrupted where the
> data is stored.  The computer usually tries to read a whole sector at a
> time and gives up rather easily if it can't read it.  If Spinrite
> recovered damaged sectors enough so that the OS can read them, it is
> possible that the part of the sector that was damaged was not a critical
> boot file, but that the sector contained a critical boot file.  Once the
> sector became unreadable, for whatever reason, that critical file
> couldn't be read either.  If you fix the sector enough to be readable
> again, then that critical file might be readable.  I hope that makes any
> sense whatsoever.  In any case, it is entirely possible that Spinrite
> could restore the machine's ability to boot, and it often does, but is
> not guaranteed to do so, depending on the nature of the failure.
>
> Now, I should point out that Spinrite must be booted from a floppy disk
> or a CD.  So, since you don't have a floppy, you'd probably have to boot
> from CD.  You could boot from a floppy attached to USB, but we haven't
> established that you can boot from USB.  More on that later.  There is
> sometimes a setting in the BIOS that tells if you can boot from CD.
> Sometimes the machine will boot from a CD automatically.  Sometimes you
> have to press a key to boot the cd or get a menu from which to boot the
> CD.  You may have already mastered this problem, since you mentioned the
> SUSE installer.
>
> In any case, if you can boot from CD, you can use something such as
> Spinrite, or tools on The Ultimate Boot CD, or even a Linux Install Disc
> to run diagnostics and tests on the hard drive in the computer, even if
> that hard drive cannot be booted on its own.
>
> Now, I should mention that you would have to create said CD's on a
> computer that is bootable and working, or you'd have to order them by
> mail, if that's an option.  If you burn your own CD's, be aware that
> really old machines, like my Win98 one (now running Lubuntu but
> decommissioned for being too slow), don't always like to read homemade
> CD's.  Use a quality brand of blank disk to burn to improve your odds.
>
> As for a USB drive, if the computer is pre 2000 vintage, it may not be
> able to boot from USB.  I have an old Win98 laptop that falls into that
> category.  It also has USB 1 rather than USB 2.  USB 1 is MUCH MUCH
> slower.  Look in the BIOS for anything that mentions USB or USB
> emulation or USB booting and turn it on.  Then, look for stuff that
> relates to the boot order.  If you want, and if the option is there, you
> can set the system to boot first from the USB port, then the internal
> hard drive.  So, if the system has this capability and if a USB drive is
> plugged in that's bootable, the system can boot from it.  I keep my
> systems set to boot from internal HDD, then CD, then USB.  If the
> internal drive is functioning, it will boot from that.  If the internal
> HDD is not working, and a bootable CD is in the drive, it will boot from
> that.  If the internal HDD is not working, and there is no CD in the
> drive, and a bootable USB device exists, it will boot from that.  Any
> time I want, I can press the special key, which varies by computer, and
> get a menu and force a boot from any device.
>
> In general, booting from USB, even if you can, is a bad idea unless you
> have a special reason like testing, etc.  The USB port is going to be
> much slower than the internal HDD interface.  If your PC has USB 1,
> don't even think about it.  However, as someone else mentioned, if you
> have access to eSata or USB 3, then booting an external drive becomes a
> lot more practical, other than the fact you have to attach it to boot.
>
> Regarding the BIOS.  You MIGHT be able to boot a Live Linux Install
> disc, access the internet, and get a more recent BIOS patch.  Installing
> it may be a problem, since the files are usually an executable that has
> to run from DOS or Windows.  Some BIOS's have a deal where you can
> access the patch file from within the BIOS and it will do the upgrade.
> But, the patch file has to be stored somewhere, which needs a functional
> hard drive.  You would have to research the particular procedure for
> your computer.  Make sure you've got all the bases covered if you
> attempt this.  Usually, if you start a BIOS upgrade and it fails in the
> middle, there is a good likelihood it will "brick" the computer and make
> it unusable.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ron
>
>
> On 1/24/2012 8:05 PM, Cornelis van Dijk wrote:
> > Thank you all for the quick reply.
> >
> > I should have mentioned that the drive does not want to boot anymore,
> > it just hangs with an idiot message about a wireless (RealTek) gadget
> > which needs its cables checked. As far as I know there is no such
> > thing on this laptop.
> >
> > The BIOS still sees the drive but not the USB external Seagate. The
> > install program of suse 11.2 *does* see the external drive and I guess
> > I could install the OS on that, but would it boot?
> > Is there a way to force the BIOS to recognize the external drive? I
> > can find no mention of the USB drive anywhere in the BIOS (it mentions
> > a floppy, but this laptop does not even have a floppy!) Upgrading the
> > BIOS is probably also out of the question because of the boot problem.
> > It is a Phoenix BIOS from 1999.
> >
> > It is kind of hard to see how programs like Spinrite would help if I
> > am not able to boot. Sorry for the incomplete information. Good to
> > know anyway.
> >
> > Also good to know that these thing are user serviceable. It is a
> > Fujitsu drive. I guess I have to open the thing up. (A year ago I
> > succesfully mucked around inside my Sony Viao, disconnected a faulty
> > ventilator fan; thing does not seem to mind.)
> >
> > Thanks again and any further help will be appreciated,
> >
> > Cor van Dijk
> >
> >
>
> --
>
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new messages very quickly.)
>
> Ron Frazier
>
> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
> linuxdude AT c3energy.com
>
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