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Thread ID: 71382	2006-08-04 04:06:00	Is my HDD dead??	ephesus (2509)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
475966	2006-08-04 04:06:00	IE hung while I was online so I power off the PC after alt.contrl.del didn't bring up task manager. On restarting, an error message "system32\Drives\pci.sys" files missing or corrupt came up and I couldn't start XP. Tried recovery console and chkdsk say C:/"vol appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems". NO LUCK HERE. Went into BIOS and HDD is not shown. Opened up case, change SATA cable, jiggle power cable. Still no luck. "sec master hard disk:S.M.A.R.T. command failed" also appear when I try to restart the PC. Is my HDD dead. Any other thing I should try? :badpc:	ephesus (2509)
475967	2006-08-04 05:17:00	Did a few more tweakings and now on start up it says "Pri master Hard Disk: SMART: Status Bad, Backup & Replace" Does this really mean its the end of the world for my HDD?? It's only 2 years old? :groan:	ephesus (2509)
475968	2006-08-04 05:46:00	They can die fairly easily. It could be dead. Try a new hdd.	pcuser42 (130)
475969	2006-08-04 05:57:00	Test with the manufacturers diagnostic tools e.g. Seagate has Seatools.. My Drive at home too is showing a SMART error .. yep it could be impending doom. I've backed important stuff on the second hard drive. The diagnostic tools will tell you for sure whether it is dying.. but you do have a 3 years warranty (or even five years) don't you :stare:	gibler (49)
475970	2006-08-04 05:58:00	I thought so. Well its out of warranty. As a last resort, I tried to repair XP using XP CD but no disk was found. I suppose this is the nail in the coffin. :help:	ephesus (2509)
475971	2006-08-04 06:01:00	Test with the manufacturers diagnostic tools e.g. Seagate has Seatools.. My Drive at home too is showing a SMART error .. yep it could be impending doom. I've backed important stuff on the second hard drive. The diagnostic tools will tell you for sure whether it is dying.. but you do have a 3 years warranty (or even five years) don't you :stare: How do test with manufacturers diagnostic tools? I can't even get into the system. Mine is a western digital. Just called the retailer's support and he is very vague about warranty ie 1 yr or 3 years.	ephesus (2509)
475972	2006-08-04 06:18:00	How do test with manufacturers diagnostic tools? I can't even get into the system. Mine is a western digital. The tools are burnt to a CD and you boot off that to run the tests from. Here is the link (wdc.custhelp.com 3Jvd19jbnQ9NjkmcF9wcm9kcz0mcF9jYXRzPSZwX3B2PSZwX2N 2PSZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPXNlYXJjaF9mbmwmcF9wYWdlPTEmc F9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1kaWFnbm9zdGlj&p_li=&p_topview=1) to the Western Digital Data Lifeguard diagnostics bootable CD version and instructions on what to do with it.	Jen (38)
475973	2006-08-04 08:16:00	Did a few more tweakings and now on start up it says "Pri master Hard Disk: SMART: Status Bad, Backup & Replace" Does this really mean its the end of the world for my HDD?? It's only 2 years old? :groan: Yep!!!! When SMART warns you like that then take its advice immediately.	pctek (84)
475974	2006-08-04 08:44:00	Deleted	gkar (5215)
475975	2006-08-04 08:46:00	You have my sincere sympathies. What a hassle. I hope you can recover the valuable data -or you had incremental backups. When I was looking for a SATA HDD for my desktop some two years back I looked at the various options & noticed that some WD drives had one year warranties & others had three year ones. I went with the 3yr one. Maybe that was only available on some sites. I won't touch anything sensitive like that with just a one year backup. (That's why I recently bought a Samsung LCD monitor to replace a failed CRT one: warranty & backup was superior). Maybe that was why HDD manufacturers went back to 3-5 year warranties; their products weren't selling? Also, don't rely on what the retailer says; it's not in their interests to be totally forthright. Check the manufacturer's parent site, it should state explicitly what their guarantees are.	gkar (5215)
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