Hard drive failure

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  1. Posts : 331
    windows 10
       #1

    Hard drive failure


    Hi all,
    Yesterday I came back to my computer and there was a pop up on the screen telling me that there is an update for Itunes available. So I clicked on install, but nothing happened.
    Then I wanted to close the pop up, but could not. All was frozen. I had to shut down by pressing the power button. When windows was reloading, it was taking a long time, I get a message that if I wanted to stop checking the drive to hit any key. I let it check, but after an hour or so it was not advancing beyond 74 %. So I shut down again and this time I hit enter when the above message appeared to stop the check. It booted. I ran Chrystal disk info and the second hard drive has problems. To avoid the long boot up, I tried to disconnect the second hard drive, but then I get a blue screen telling me that a device in not available and to put my windows disk in and repair windows. Somehow the second hard drive has to be connected to boot, but when I connect it, it takes a long time and wants to check the drive, but never finishes.
    Besides a bad drive, how come it will not boot when I disconnect the drive.
    Any ideas?
    Sven
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #2

    Sounds like the boot sector and boot loader are on one drive while guess what? 10 is on another! When first seeing 10 go on was that an upgrade or clean install?

    For the initial 10 upgrade here last summer 10 wouldn't even go on! After I reviewed the Clean Install guide guess what? I found out that not only did I have to unplug the 7 host/boot drive to allow 10 to first upgrade over the clone and later a clean install of 7 on the second now 10 host/boot drive but also had to unplug the two storage/backup drives as well where one saw the temp install folders and the other later found to have the boot files!That made my day!

    That sounds similar to what you are seeing as far as unplugging one drive and not able to get anywhere due to the misplacement of the mbr and boot loader. But the one thing you will want to find out now is whether or not it's the drive OS that is at fault or is it the 10 install whether upgrade or not being the source of the problems.

    If you nave the 10 media made up or can boot live from something like a Linux cd or dvd in order to view both of the drives while plugged in you could easily identify which drive saw 10 go on it as well as find out if you are able to access the drive or not. If not either the drive may have gone DOA on you or the Partition table may have suffered an oops! moment on you. How old is the drive? while even a new drive can go ... ut ohhhhh.. on you while some drives last a long time. There are some free tools available from each drive manufacturer as well as other freewares in order to run diagnostic tests on the main drive once and if you are able to see it made bootable.
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 331
    windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Night Hawk,
    thanks for your response.
    I suspected something like that. windows depositing something on drive 2.
    if I unplug drive 2 and then do a repair install, will that solve the problem? and will I then be able to boot normally?
    By the way, I checked and it is drive 2 that is the problem. after windows was running it gave ma a warning to back up all files from drive "D" before the drive fails completely.
    Thanks
    Sven
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #4

    I think you found your answer for either the Upgrade to Repair type install or simply go for a fresh Clean Install to insure the best results once the problem drive as well as any other non OS drive(s) are removed from the equation. I ran smack into that one last July 29th! and into the first week of August back then. Simply follow the steps in either of the two guides and you shouldn't run into any problems.

    One thing I prefer here until deciding to allow the next Insider Preview build available to replace the Threshold 2 update when that got buggy on me would have been to see a full replacement install of Windows once an installation got messed up! The Startup Repair option might even work if you run that a few times before using the last resort options now that you know which drive has a problem.

    You can try that to see if you can get the OS drive running on it's own and then decide if you find 10 still running buggy on the two other options. The bootrec commands used while booted live at the command prompt option can also work at times while the Startup Repair tool is all automatic there. You just have to run it 2 or 3 times for something like this to see the boot sector written or rewritten properly.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 331
    windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #5

    Thank you very much
    I try the repair install
    Sven
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #6

    Give it a try! Let me know how it goes for you! Once that is finished you may want to go with a drive tool to check things out. The Seagate SeaTools is good for most brands of drives.

    If you have a WD drive the LifeGuard Tools is good there. And Samsung has their own diagnotics app available. Those are found among 11 others seen at http://pcsupport.about.com/od/toolso.../tophddiag.htm
      My Computers


  7. whs
    Posts : 1,935
    Windows 7
       #7
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #8

    It wouldn't hurt any! EasyBCD is a well written program there!
      My Computers


  9. Posts : 331
    windows 10
    Thread Starter
       #9

    Hi all
    I downloaded EasyBCD and installed it. I ran it and I had a few problems afterwards
    When I first booted it up, it got to the desktop, but would not respond to any mouse click. it was frozen. I pushed the reset button and it would not boot at all. windows wanted to check the drive for errors and repair it. I let it do so, but after that it tells me that windows did not load correctly and to choose from repair options. again I just pushed the reset button and it started to boot, but it was taking a long time. I pushed the reset button again and it booted up fine, not very fast, but it got there and so far my programs work. maybe the boot time will improve after a while.
    in any event, I can now boot without the second hard drive attached.

    Thanks for your help
    Sven
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 3,367
    W10 Pro x64/W7 Ultimate x64 dual boot main - W11 Triple Boot Pending
       #10

    I would manually schedule a run of the Disk Check tool from the Command prompt(admin) option but with the two repair switches added onto the command itself. When right clicking on the Start button simply scroll down to that option to see the new window open and then type: "chkdsk /r/f" in at the prompt. The R=Repair and F=Fix switches will instruct the tool to make any necessary repairs.

    The confirmation will then appear indicating it is scheduled to run on the next startup. You still will want the drive scanned for any disk errors which will often cause boot up issues as well as problems while in Windows.
      My Computers


 

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