Yet Another Laptop Crash

[lozina]

I had a bunch of my software development tools open and was browsing the Anandtech forums when suddenly Firefox started reporting some errors- somethign about files not being found I dont remember exactly and I got the Windows Error Report windows for it (says it's shutting the app down asks if you want to send an Error report) and it closes

Then I try restarting firefox and Windows says Firefox.exe not found. I was like wtf? How could that be. Then I try opening explorer to see what's going on there and it just hangs so I just shut down everything I can and restart the computer. After a long delay it restarts but It wouldn't reboot:

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

I google this MS article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

and I try to follow the instructions on Step 1 and on the first copy it says unable to copy file.

So then I get my setup CD and go into repair/recovery console and I type chkdsk /p

It runs for a really long time and gets to 31% before quitting and reporting something one or more unrecoverable errors exist on the drive.

This is seriously the third time my HD on this laptop has failed. The last time this happened in Sept. I replaced the HD so this was a new Western Digital drive.

Am I incredibly lucky or what?

Any ideas on getting back to my old Windows without resorting to the nuke it all and restart from scratch approach?

 

[cprince]

You can try to get your data off the hard drive by using an external USB-to-IDE adapter plug into another computer. Other than that, your laptop might be overheating causing your hard drive to fail.

 

[lozina]

Originally posted by: cprince
You can try to get your data off the hard drive by using an external USB-to-IDE adapter plug into another computer. Other than that, your laptop might be overheating causing your hard drive to fail.

Hmm that's a good suggestion, because my laptop does get very hot.


I used a Knoppix CD to extract the data I needed, and then I ran the Western Digital diagnostic tool to error check the drive and about 1/3 of the way through it said "too many errors- contact tech support" lol.