Oh dear lord, help :(

Hello people.

I have a serious HDD recovery issue, and don't know what to do.

I have a 160 gig HDD, primary and secondary is the same.

I started my comp (desktop) today and suddenly it went 100% working, and I cudnt even do SHIFT+CTRL+ESC for the task manager ( OS: XP pro SP1). Its been stable for a long time so all configuration is fine. This is a instant error due to some anomaly , not configuration!

Ok, so after a while i pushed the restart button. This must of corrupted the drive as it was reading or writing, as now the mobo detects the HDD, but yet it is not working (I/O error).

The MBR doesnt detect the disk, (I get a geometry error, due to secondary disk being listed probably as primary.)

The boot loader is GRUB as I have a linux box as well on prim disk. This has nothing to do with the GRUB being corrupted either. It simply is that the primary HDD is having an I/O error, cos i restarted the computer while it was working?

I have never seen a HDD been damaged by this before, and wondering if it was some malicious code, running the HDD on purpose like that to ruin it?

In any case, XP recovery doesnt work, and no point in resetting the MBR surely as my disk is recognised, but not accessible.
Is there *ANY* way for me to fix the I/O, or somehow does anyone know a fix for such a problem. Please help, as I keep 4 logical partitions on the physical drive, and as long as it has this I/O error, I cannot format it and rerun an OS installation on the C partition.

lakmilis

(^~;?(First, the title should be descriptive.)

Remove another drives and check HDD by powermax.exe or its replace for the moment. If it is working for that long time, it's not strange for HDD, Windows or any superficially healthy man to end its longevity all of a sudden.

Disk is not thata old, I am sure it was due to it was working with full intenisty freezing the system and me pushing the restart button. I cannot do a powermax.exe? as I cannot access system, as I can not run the primary HDD.



PS. Yes, the title, I read the sticky news right after, and double posted with a proper title

Hmm , fomr some reason for the first time in my life, XP system recovery helped.

Ok, this is what happened :

1) As the cmos detected the drive, yet the MBR cudnt read the disk, I cudn't in xp setup disk, recover or access the primary disk (with the C OS(Xp pro) partition, D program partition, E games partition, F documents, and web server partition).

2. I was gonna try to install on the secondary disk XP again n work from it to try n recover primary. But for some reason it had issues and wudnt let those partitions be viable or let me partition the sec. into windows compatible drives .?? dont ask me why.

3. i disconnected the secondary drive which was working fine, and went into XP setup. it is now that it let me recover the C partition. Even without asking me for the infamous administrator password which *never* works.

4. It is currently installing the repaired OS data, and hmm I hope it will work. If, so I i will connect the secondary and see what I have lost, or kept.

5. Update to be issued.

(^~;?(Powermax will work on floppy Cardera-Dos.)

In any ways, you'd better prepare HD diagnostic tool to repair low-level failures which chkdsk can't do. Use any data recovery tools which can ignore copy errors first.