dead hard drive?

[KellyK]

Last night I was surfing the web and entered a website which had a pop up program asking if I was old enough to be accessing the site. I clicked "yes" and shortly thereafter, AOL crashed and I got the blue Windows screen signifying an error. I rebooted and then my computer started in safe mode. It ran through ScanDisk and got stuck about 3/4 of the way. I tried again and ScanDisk kept stopping at the same point. So I checked the IDE Drive Diagnostics and I got a "Fail. Return Code 7". The guy at Dell said my hard drive is dead. My computer is only 3 years old. Is there anything I can possibly do to restore my machine? There was a language barrier with the guy at Dell and I'm not sure he understood me. Also, is it possible a malicious program caused this to happen? When I start up in Normal mode, I get a "registry file was not found" message. It then has the Add New Hardware wizard but it is blank where it is supposed to tell me what hardware. It can't find any drivers for it and I'm not even sure what it's trying to install. Help!! I am heartbroken at the thought of losing all my digital camera pictures and games....

Kelly

 

[mattjurado]

Sounds like you were clicking on an add, which may mean you installed spyware, or had spyware installed already. Regardless, the fact that the dell diagnostics came up with that error sure sounds like a bad drive. Their software is pretty accurate. If the files are important, you'll need to slave the drive off in another computer and try to copy them that way. Do not mess with the computer until you are ready to try. The more you turn it on, the harder it will be to recover the files. The drive is running now, but you may only be able to turn it on a few more times before it fails.

Matt J.

Please always take the time to backup any and all data before performing any actions suggested for ANY problem, regardless of how minor a change it might seem. Also test the backup to make sure it is intact.

 

[billy71]

I was able to recover some data from a Dead Dell Drive after diagnostics proved it bad. Had to install a new drive and Windows, then after it was running I installed the bad drive as a Slave. If your computer finds the slave you may be able to Recovered most of it but finally the Computer will probably not even find it.
Sorry for your loss
Billy

 

[KellyK]

Thanks for the help guys, even if this looks pretty grim..

Do you think it was something I got from the "adult" website I went to, or was it just a coincidence that my hard drive crashed at that moment? I am beating myself up.

Kelly

 

[mattjurado]

Spyware can't kill a drive, but it sounds like the disk access that happened at the same time started the problem that you are now seeing. Just a rare coincidence.

Matt J.

Please always take the time to backup any and all data before performing any actions suggested for ANY problem, regardless of how minor a change it might seem. Also test the backup to make sure it is intact.

 

[KellyK]

Tried slaving the drive last night on my dad's computer and it was not even recognized by his machine. In the Slave Drive section of setup it had a weird hex value instead of saying Maxtor. So then we put the drive back into my machine and now it is not being recognized by it either. Frustrating since at least before it was showing me the directory structure when it tried to add new hardware. Now I get nothing but a black screen with a cursor blinking in the corner. I think I am doomed! :-(

Kelly

 

[mattjurado]

This is what happens when drives go away.

Matt J.

Please always take the time to backup any and all data before performing any actions suggested for ANY problem, regardless of how minor a change it might seem. Also test the backup to make sure it is intact.