weird laptop hard drive failure

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it's a bit similar to the recent thread:
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubb..._7_#Post3745591

but it's also different. the drive is invisible to windows, even if booted from CD. the bootable HD tools see the drive and SMART and all clusters check out fine. but the WD diagnostic software reports uncorrectable sectors (don't know how many) on the long scan, basically a fail.

but at the advice of the wiki on corrupted hard drives, i booted linux and the drive and all the files are there. i'm manually copying some recent files that are newer than the last whole drive backup.

is this a partition table corruption?
 
Yes, or the MFT. It is repairable but if you can recover the info and just replace the drive there is no point in fixing it.
 
Or the MBR has been hosed.

You might try a repair with your Windows disk.

Though, if you're able to recover your most recent files, that coupled with a backup, (a backup!), means you can restore to a reliable drive and get away from this one.

Is it still under warranty?
 
Originally Posted By: bornconfuzd
Looks like we were both typing at the same time, OVERKILL! :-)


Indeed
cheers3.gif
grin.gif
 
thanks for the replies. looks like MBR corruption indeed. not sure if this is a drive failure or not. i read about MBR viruses and will check for that too.
 
Originally Posted By: friendly_jacek
thanks for the replies. looks like MBR corruption indeed. not sure if this is a drive failure or not. i read about MBR viruses and will check for that too.


I recently had to fix a laptop for a family friend with a MBR Corrupt from a virus AND a buggy windows install because the hard drive fell out. It wouldn't boot to windows (would just bluescreen) and windows repair couldn't identify the volumes correctly, so that was out of the option.

Cloned the hard drive to a different sized hard drive, which would make the MBR get recreated and I was able to get Windows System restore. Then the laptop worked fine and was able to boot, where I ran some virus programs and it is fine now.
 
a follow up. it was a drive failure. i reformatted it, but victoria HD utility showed 46 slow sectors (some as slow as several seconds) and the WD software still reported as unrepairable sectors. this is weird as SMART was OK and drive had low hrs (like 12000). i think laptop drives are not as good as desktop ones. i realize there are more mechanical forces and abuse in laptops, but i had more laptop HD failures compared to desktops, while using more desktops for a whole lot longer.
 
So the failing drive corrupted the MBR? I've run into that a couple of times.

FWIW, SMART isn't always that smart. :-)

Glad you found it!

Larry
 
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