WD HDD Crashing <--Data recovered and resolved

[imported_Kane]

My Dell Dimension 4400 is down mainly due to a yet another problem with a Western Digital 120GB hard drive (WD1200jb) SE ATA100. Its only 4 months old and it started making a repetitive clicking noise. Yet, when I place this HDD in another system it spins quietly but is still not accessible. Here is the stop error:

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this error screen, please restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Disable or uninstall any antivirus, disk defrag or backup utilities. Check
your hard drive configuration, and check for any updated drivers. Run chkdsk
/f to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer."

Technical Information:

*** STOP: 0X0000024 (0X001901FD, 0X84DE57E0, 0XC0000032, 0X00000000)
*** ntfs.sys - AddressF81C7411 base at F8159000, datestamp 3b7dc5d0

The problem is that I tried chkdsk /f/r/p but it prompts me to run scandisk as it is more effective in fixing bad sectors. I ran scandisk c: /autofix but it didn't find any errors. After repeated attempts the hard disk drive would freeze upon the winxp start up screen. Now I cannot reinstall winxp or use the winxp boot disks as I get the BSOD.

There is an edited birthday video which I was about to burn to DVD when the drive/computer went down. Therefore, I would like to save as data as I can.

Here are the specs for the Dell Dimension 4400.
P4 1.8 GHz
2x256 MB 2100 DDR SDRAM
WD1200JB
WD400
WinXP Pro

To help with troubleshooting I borrowed another WD1200JB from a friend,
formatted and installed the OS. The new drive worked fine so that should rule out everything except the crashing drive.
I could not get that mem testing application to work so I tried checking the RAM by swapping each DIMM out to determine if I had a bad stick. About 1 week ago I fixed a corrupted registry hive but I do not think that there is any relation to this incident. Partition Magic 8.0 reported the primary partition improperly dismounted and too many errors to be able to convert the primary partition to a logical partition. Any suggestions? Could this be some other hardware conflict?

I feel like I'm up the creek without a paddle. <sigh>

 

[Smilin]

wait wait. Clarify a couple things...

chkdsk prompted you to do what? scandisk ???

Is this NTFS or FAT32?

Were you running chkdsk from recovery console or from within the OS?
Just use the /R switch. It implies /F (in the OS) and /P (in RC)

What are you doing with Partition Havoc again? There is no such thing as a logical partition; I assume you mean converting a primary partition to a logical drive in an extended partition, but why are you trying to do this? (FYI: extended partitions are a pain in the ass to hex edit because you get a big linked list of partition tables across your drive).
How many partitions are on this drive?

When you fixed the corrupted hive a few weeks ago, did you also run a chkdsk from recovery console at that time?

When you have the drive mounted as a secondary and try to access it, what is the error you get?
Run chkdsk /r and post the full output here.
Also check your application event log for Winlogon events and copy paste the last few recent ones here.

 

[imported_Kane]

Thank you for your reply, Smilin.
Earlier when I tried to run chsdsk it would mention something about running scandisk with and /autofix command prior to running chkdsk. I did what was recommended and scandisk did not find any errors.

All primary and and logical partitions are NTFS.

I only used Partition Magic to try to change the primary partition to a logical drive in order to recover data.

I used another bootdisk (win98) with the chkdsk application on it. I could not run chkdsk from the recovery console. As soon as I enter the RC or try in install winXP I receive the BSOD.

Sorry about having confused a logical partition with logical drive. I was quite exhausted as I was typing that post. There are 2 partitions and 3 logical drives.

Yes, I did run chkdsk and fixed errors when I had the corrupted hive problem earlier.

When I ran the crashing drive as a slave on another IDE channel I could only boot with the slave drive. This was using my new computer running winxp with a SATA drive. It was really strange how it would boot from that crashing drive so I then placed it in a external case and it would still boot from a firewire connection. Upon boot there was the BSOD so I cannot run chkdsk. If I could somehow get into DOS mode prior to the BSOD from showing up I think I can run chkdsk.

 

[imported_Kane]

Any suggestions?

 

[imported_Kane]

Smilin? Anyone else?

 

[Slikkster]

After a little searching, here's what you're going to have to do. It involves moving this corrupted NTFS disc to another machine with XP, but having XP installed with Fat32 on the other machine.

So, here's how I would do it. If you have a separate drive, temporarily pull this one that won't boot out of your computer. Install XP (using FAT32, not NTFS) on the separate drive.

Now, follow the instructions from Microsoft here:

1. Make sure the drive that contains the corrupted NTFS volume is disconnected, and then start Windows by using Safe mode. (meaning start Windows in safe mode on the new install that you did with FAT32)

2. Rename the %SystemRoot%\System32\Drivers\Ntfs.sys file to Ntfs.old, and then shut down the computer (this action prevents the Ntfs.sys driver from loading). (to be clear, this means rename the ntfs.sys file on the new install to ntfs.old. Remember, you're doing all of this in Safe Mode.)

3. Shut down the new install of XP and turn off pc. Reconnect the drive that contains the corrupted NTFS volume.
(of course, you will need to set the jumper on this drive to Slave, probably, unless you hook it up to a master position on a separate IDE controller).

4. Restart the computer, and then run the following command on the corrupted NTFS volume:
chkdsk driveletter: /f
NOTE: The Chkdsk tool has built-in support for NTFS and does not require the Ntfs.sys driver to make repairs.


5. After you use the Chkdsk tool to repair the corrupted NTFS volume, rename %SystemRoot%\System32\Drivers\Ntfs.old to Ntfs.sys, and then shut down and restart the computer.

Now, step 5. is up to you, depending upon whether you want to keep that separate install of XP on the other drive. I would do it, though. Remember to set the jumper on your original drive back to Master if you changed it above.

Of course, with the pc shutdown, remove the drive you installed XP to on a FAT32 install, and reinstall your original drive that's been repaired. See if it will boot.

 

[imported_Kane]

Slikkster, thank you for your advice. I'm off to Circuit City to purchase a new HDD.

 

[imported_Kane]

Well I bought my New HDD installed WinXP and it works fine. I also had ample time to back up all data withing the primary partition using the boot ntfs diskette. (If possible I would like to recover data off of the other two extended partitions or logical drives.)

However, I could not run chkdsk C: /f as recommended. There is no way I can use the WinXP recovery console or get into DOS with the corrupted ntfs drive because the BSOD with the stop 0X0000024 error pops up before I can do anything.

 

[imported_Kane]

Since I could not find a fix for this nagging problem, I just used fdisk from my Win98SE boot disk removed the primary partition and recreated another identical to the original size. Reinstalled WinXP Pro. SP2 corrupted 4 installs. I then decided to just run a firewall/antivirus without SP2.

All data was recovered. Now I am writing zeros to the old drive to get it RMAed.

A big MAHALO goes out to Slikkster and Smilin for their helpful advice.

 

[imported_Kane]

I finally found the source of the corruption. After installing etrust ez armor from computer associates the BSOD stop errors returned. While in safemode, I was able to uninstall ez armor. Computer Associates support site provided no help in this situation or at least none that I found during my search.