Dead drive may be?

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:01 am

ok was asked to look at a drive, the one who owns it said that he got board waiting for it to format and shut off the machine. Is there a way to save the drive or should he start talking to the manuf. to get it fixed that way?

oh, its a western digital caviar 160g pata.

thoughts?

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:21 am

Have you tried format it ?

If it won't format normally - you can write zeros to the drive (low-level format)
WD have a utility which allows you to do it! (can't remember the name - I don't use WD)

Could also try "SpinRite" --> can be found @ GRC.com (have to pay for it tough)

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:36 am

I tried putting it in my system, wont even show up. rebooted to try fdisk. I droped all drives but that one and it gave a fatal error trying to read the disk...

I'll hit up WD site see if I can find something.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:46 am

http://support.wdc.com/download/?cxml=n&pid=3&swid=18

Old Data Lifeguard Tools Diagnostic

Post by **Illuminati** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 7:54 am

as long as there are no physical defects, a low-level format should work.

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 9:02 am

I have grabed some of the disk util from WD, never thought about going there. If those dont work I'll see about the spin rite, that looks pretty good.

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 12:44 pm

ok, got the drive going again.

found an old fdisk here at work, add the util to it droped all drives but the one needing to be fixed (wouldnt see other wise) then did the zero level format. now need to get the drive partioned and formated.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 12:51 pm

bubba wrote:ok, got the drive going again.

found an old fdisk here at work, add the util to it droped all drives but the one needing to be fixed (wouldnt see other wise) then did the zero level format. now need to get the drive partioned and formated.

R U saying your sorted???

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 1:40 pm

? formated ok, in the process of coping over my "art" collection to the drive.

kenc51 · Post by **kenc51** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 2:08 pm

bubba wrote:? formated ok, in the process of coping over my "art" collection to the drive.

"ART" ???? hehehe

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Mon Oct 24, 2005 2:49 pm

killswitch83 · Post by **killswitch83** » Sun Nov 20, 2005 11:46 pm

"art" eh??? I have a frickin gallery, roflmao.....hey, computer geek has to get his some way or another

bubba · Post by **bubba** » Mon Nov 21, 2005 5:24 am

accutaly the drive ended up tits up anyway, sad really, started getting corrupt files. whent to do the drive test and it just stoped talking. He is looking into an RMA. up side he got most the "art" off loaded to DVD's