Frank,
Short of what's already been suggested(diagnostic disk, slave,
bootable linux) I don't know of any other way of testing the drive.
On Fri, 08 Oct 2004 23:14:03 -0400, SOTL <sotl155360@earthlink.net> wrote:
> Hi All
>
> Lets be clear about the sequence of events here.
>
> 1. First, I entered a web site which may or [may not] have caused a HD
> issue. I suspect yes because of the response of the drive and because I
> have had this happen in the past. How I do not have a clue; that is way
> above my level.
>
> 2. My normal method of solving these type of issues is to reinstall the
> system which is Mandrake 9.1. Problem I have no idea where the system disk
> but I did find the 9.2 disk which system I do not like. The 9.1 disk is DVD
> while the 9.2 is CD. There are major differences between the DVD and CD
> version; the DVD having all the programs in the CD version plus a number of
> ones including like Midnight Commander which I like. Since I plan on
> upgrading to 10.1 ASAP I decided I would sacrifice the additional programs
> in 9.1 and update to 9.2.
>
> 3. At this point I can still boot Windows. Being some what whipped out I
> did what I should never do and started trying to repair a computer. I thus
> proceed to put the install / update first disk of 9.2 in the old CD drive.
>
> 4. My update process ended half way through the process with an error
> message of unable to find something; if I recall correctly the HD but it
> could have been something else. I tried this a number of times. The HD made
> a horrible scratching sound here in Linux but not in Windows. I can still
> boot windows at this point.
>
> 5. The next day or maybe the following day, most probably the following
> day, I tried again. This is when I lost the ability to boot into either
> Windows or Linux so the boot record is now corrupt. For me loosing boot is
> normal too when I have problems with reinstallation. This is where I
> stopped two days ago.
>
> My next idea was to reinstall Windows which should allow me to boot widows
> if I did not destroy the Windows separation partitions.
>
> As for partitions the drive is partitioned as follows:
> hda1 10GB Windows Sorry I forgot the petition type but it is Windows XP
> standard
> hda2 20GB Data Fat32
> hda3 100 MB /boot ext3
> hda4 10GB / ext3
> hda5 10GB /home ext3
>
> Personally I do not see an issue with what I am proposing but considering
> ny last two week hard luck I chickened out and posted my posting.
>
> As far as the hard luck lets let that suffice with the above computer
> issues and the fact that I broke mt hand. Typing with two fingers on one
> hand is a bitch. I will also state for what ever reason my Linux desktop
> system is down too for some reason related to modem. That one I don't get
> as I have a system on one of my drawer HD that has not been used in a
> couple of years. Implication being this is a hardware problem which will
> have to wait until I have two hands to work with.
>
> Question: Does anyone have any better idea of how to verify if the HD is
> bad or good with out using the recovery disk. I did not get a tools or
> diagnostic disk.
>
> Thank
>
> Frank
>
>
>
>
> Levi Bard wrote:
>
> > I recently had a drive go bad - applications started giving me read
> > errors, then the bios started complaining, then it just became
> > generally unusable. Interesting that you mention different partitions
> > having an effect, though. I had some ext3 and some xfs partitions on
> > this drive, and it seemed like the xfs really exaggerated (or do I
> > want to say exacerbated) the problem while the ext3 hid/worked around
> > it as much as possible. Later I ended up wiping and reformatting the
> > xfs part to ext3 and, while the problem didn't go away, it became a
> > lot more usable until my replacement arrived.
> >
> > So I guess I'm still an ext3 fan.
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>
>
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