PC Disaster and Recovery

Hard drives often report errors that signify a problem with the drive (or with reading or writing to it). But they can also offer some scary visible and auditory signs that tip you off to a hardware issue as opposed to something like a virus.

Some of the warning signs and symptoms of a dead or dying drive include

• Horrific or loud noises that involve brr-ing or buzzing, clicking, grinding, or scraping sounds

• Loud vibration (although this can also be caused by a drive that is not securely mounted in its drive bay)

• No drive light (If instead, the drive light remains on all the time, this is usually a sign of a reversed drive cable, which can fry the drive.)

• Smoke, sparks, or a strange odor coming from drive

• Drive not being detected by the BIOS (indicative of a dead drive if the drive was previously detected by the BIOS), which you can see (or rather, not see) by going into BIOS Setup

• All other drives respond with the PC turned on except for the suspect drive

• A drive that shows garbage, corruption, or confusion after an event like a serious power surge

• Repeated drive errors

• It takes two or three PC restarts to get the hard drive to respond when starting up the PC

• Water-marking (like dried water spots) on the exterior drive shell (This may indicate it’s been subjected to water, or the computer was operated while very cold and condensation formed.)

When Dead Isn’t Really Dead

Let’s start on a hopeful note by looking at the types of problems that can make it seem to you and to your system that a hard drive is having a problem that might lead you to think it’s dead or dying. Most of these problems can be resolved without replacing the drive, especially if you don’t do anything to exacerbate the damage.

Here are some of the issues you should examine as possible causes:

Hardware conflicts  Your hard drive is not listed in Device Manager, but your hard drive controller (the interface between your drive and the PC) is. If another device is using the same IRQ as the hard drive controller, you’re going to have a problem that behaves much like a dead hard drive, even though the drive is fine. I’ll discuss this later under the “Troubleshooting Errors and Warnings” section.

Corrupted or damaged drive-overlay software  If there are problems with your drive-overlay software, you’ll probably see a message to this effect on the screen. This topic is discussed in more detail in the section “Are You Using Drive-Overlay Software?”

Corrupted or missing master boot record (MBR)  A corrupted or missing MBR can usually be fixed by recreating the MBR. To do this in Windows 95/98/Me, reboot with a boot disk and type the following command at the command prompt: fdisk /mbr. In Windows XP, use the Recovery Console and the fixmbr command. However, don’t use either method if you’re using drive-overlay software.

File system or BIOS corruption from a computer virus or catastrophic event  Check your system regularly for viruses using anti-virus software that’s updated for the most recently released viruses. For file system corruption, completely reformatting the hard drive may help. For BIOS corruption, you may need to apply a fresh BIOS update or contact the BIOS manufacturer for assistance.

Driver corruption  Special drivers called bus-mastering drivers that work with your hard drive are installed as part of your PC setup. If these drivers become outdated and/or corrupted, it’s possible that the results could mimic a dead or dysfunctional drive. The best measure for this is proactive; use Windows Update to alert you to critical updates for this type of driver as well as for other drivers.

Drive diagnostics and/or drive-management software comes packed with a hard drive or can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s web site. Such diagnostics are designed for that particular drive. Look to see whether the problems you’re having are serious enough to replace the drive. Also check out the “Troubleshooting Errors and Warnings” section later in this chapter.

Practices That Put Your Drive at Risk

Let’s assume that you’ve still got a hard drive you can repair and use. Once you’ve stabilized your PC and completed a backup or drive image with everything working well, be aware of practices that place your hard drive at risk:

• Failure to shut down your PC properly, or forcing the PC to perform excessive reboots

• Failure to watch conditions that can contribute to excessive heat within the PC case, particularly in the area of the drive bays

• Failure to use proper power protection such as a good-quality surge suppressor or, better yet, a UPS

• Failure to observe proper precautions when working with drive connections that can lead to reversed cables, shorting of the drive (if not the motherboard) by plugging in the drive with the PC turned on, and other disasters

• Not regularly scanning your system for viruses using anti-virus software

• Operating the PC in a dirty environment where ash and dust can be pulled inside the PC case and into the drive (Drives are extremely sensitive to contaminants.)

• Operating the PC in extremes of temperature and moisture

• Using a large magnetic device in close proximity to the drive

• Poor mounting of the drive (A drive angled in an odd position or that vibrates excessively can seriously increase wear on internal components.)

  Note

  Most experts agree that the leading cause of hard drive failure is prolonged overheating. This situation is exacerbated by the large capacity of new drives, which means they have to fit a lot more data into the same size physical drive. Many experts recommend buying a drive-cooling fan (such as those discussed in Chapter 11, “Avoiding Power and Overheating Problems”) to reduce heat-related wear.

Let’s be clear on one point before going further: If you smell smoke (whether it’s coming from the drive or another part of the PC), see sparks or fire, or hear a terrible noise coming from the vicinity of your hard drive, shut the PC off and disconnect it from power immediately.

Similarly, if a disaster of some type produces water that is coming close to the PC, kill power and disconnect the PC from its power source as soon as possible.

Should you find your PC in a situation where the hard drive is visibly damaged, don’t try to plug the drive back in, even into a different machine. A drive with serious physical injury is not one you can try to work with yourself. If you want to salvage data from it, seek professional assistance (discussed later in this chapter).

Finally, please don’t assume that you can just open up the drive casing and try to repair it yourself, even if friends and associates tell you it’s possible. Ask them to show you a drive they’ve fixed that way in good operation. There aren’t many.

When you send a drive to be repaired or recovered, workers open them in sterile, clean environments and exercise grave care; this isn’t the same as taking a hard drive out to the garage workbench. The least amount of damage you can do there is to contaminate the platter surfaces with debris that makes the drive harder or impossible to recover.