win2k system failure / drive failure? help..

[astaroth]

so a very minimalist installation of win2k is running along smoothly. last thing i remember before *it* happened was a bad burn that hung the machine. decided to reboot [it had actually been awhile] and..

(1) process1_initialization_error - 3 times on 3 subsequent boots, after the windows progress bar and all..

(2) ok, make a run for the ghost images. do a multicast dump and it hangs maybe 10% in or so? multicast working on other machines so this seems not the issue..

(3) let's reinstall win2k. i get an "emulation error" just before the boot from cdrom prompt, but it lets me in. install hangs on corrupt atapi.sys error..

(4) next two install attempts i get the same initial emulation error, and i can get to the drive partition menus. however, take 1 i format c: and the format hangs at 12%. take 2 i rebuild partition and format c: and the format hangs at 12%.

the drive seems very hot. is this a drive failure? i need some clues and a workaround (i hope)..

presently, the drive is partitioned as follows.
c: 2gigs, win2k
d: 4gigs, programs
e: 10gigs, data

clues as to what started all this?
any way to recover drive - determine its state?
any way to recover data if the drive is dead?

thx!

 

[PBiles]

Try this utility Here Download Gwscan extract the files to a flopy and boot to it. You shold be able to run the quick test but the extended is HIGHLY reccomended as the quick can miss some errors. Most of the errors that will be found can also be fixed by the utility. GOOD LUCK

 

[astaroth]

thanks for the lead on that app, but it didn't work. i did use the eval version of the following utility and it returned a corrupt BPB (Bios Parameter Block). skipped the surface scan for the meantime..

http://www.ontrack.com/dataadvisor/

so i do some research on BPB and find the following.
http://www.computercraft.com/test/messages/1762.html

apparently, win95/98 will ignore invalid BPB but win2k will not. now i am trying to format via a win98 startup disc, and i receive the following..

6% trying to recover allocation unit 4190
12% trying to recover allocation unit 8131-still going..

in the past, this had always been an indication of a damaged drive. i guess i am sort of in disbelief right now though. or at least i want to be.

any ideas on how to recover data on the 3rd partition? would prefer to do it myself rather than a data recovery shop or what not..

thx again..

 

[PBiles]

Huummm. Is this a WD hard drive? Did you download the NON OS Specific version of the utill? It's got a verry good track record. As far as being a wd hard drive, that doesn't matter just wondering. This utility will actually relocate, and de-allocate data sectors, which then become unusable on the drive. After testing you will get a four digit code, you can look up on the gw website what the code means, reparible, not repairable etc. Unless of course it simply will not run, which is very rare. As for data recovery you got me. I know its expensive to have someone to do it for ya. Ohhh, make sure you add command.com to the flopy, or make sure it was there after extracting the files to it. Other wise you can't boot to the floppy.

 

[astaroth]

yes on the non-os version..
wd 20g caviar 200bb

it is on warranty and i am thinking about an exchange..

presently i have it connected as slave to another win2k machine. win2k is finding the 2 logical drives (the data drive, importantly) and i am dumping to yet another machine..

so data is recovered and that is a relief (before all this happened i was doing the backup en masse thing), but i am curious as to what could have caused this so i might reduce chances in the future. wd drives have always been good to me..

thoughts?

 

[astaroth]

also, i got the following error when trying to boot your utility..
NTLDR missing - unable to start etc

that's what led me to the BPB search..