Book Disk Failure!

[Hammertime]

Hi guys,

Windows 98 PC here, booted this morning and HDD is not detected in BIOS and displays the error message BOOT DISK FAILURE. Was all working fine yesterday, I normally just re-install or replace the HDD however there is data on this PC that is required by the user. Is there anything I can do?

Thanks,

Hammertime

 

[kestrel1]

Have you tried getting the BIOS to auto detect the hard drive?
You could try putting the drive into another computer to see if it can be recognised. I had one do the same to me & it turned out the drive had failed & had to be replaced.

 

[MarcLodge]

If the drive has failed, there are a host of people out there who can recover it for you. I had a hard disk fail on me, sent the unit off, and got back 100% of the data (on a brand new disk). I seem to recall that this was an terribly expensive process and far outweighed the potential cost of the loss of the data.

 

[rockerfellerz]

First I would make sure that the cable hasn't come loose, and the power connector as well. Can you hear the drive spin up? If you put the end of a screwdriver to the case and the plastic end to your ear you will hear if it is spinning up or not. If it is spinning, and everything is hooked up fine but is still failing then try a new cable. Then try to detect the drive in the bios. If you can't detect it in the bios after all that then it is likely toast.
If it's not spinning up then there are a few last resort things to try that may get it working again( for a short time)
See this link:

http://www.hddrecovery.com.au/downloads/200ways.pdf

Hope this helps....

If you're going through Hell...keep going... (Winston Churchill)
RocKeRFelLerZ

 

[JokeySmurf]

What make is the hard drive?

Between the years 2000 and 2002, Fujitsu, put out an line of hard drives that have been dying. In any case, find out what make it is and go to their web site and download the diagnostic tools for that particular drive.

One more thing, use a ribbon cable that you know is fine and try that first.

 

[the1bigboy]

prob a useless suggestion, get a file manger for dos, win1.01 can be booted from a floppy and you can use that to copy files to a floppy maby
(

http://toastytech.com/guis/win101disk.zip

I,toasty tech or Teck-tips have no responceabilty of what happens on the zip file, download at ur own risk!)

 

[sgtjwhite]

Find out the Disk MFG, go to that site and download their hard drive utility. That util will boot to dos and chk out the condition of the drive. As an example I have IBM drives (5ea) and use IBM "DFT" util. DFT will low level format if necessary or tell you the drive problem. I also hear it is expensive to send out your drv for data recovery.Before I did that I would search the web for recovery software and try that. Good Luck.

 

[Hammertime]

Thanks for all your responses! The drive had completely failed, wouldn't read as slave etc. It was a Fujitsu drive produced during 2000-2002 and i've had many do the same to me (we purchased a line of PC's with that model of drive!) I'm hoping this is the last of them. The drives are replaced by the supplier with a different make/model free of charge, the users are meant to back their data up regularly on a remote drive - we do tell them!

Thanks again,

Hammertime