At the moment I am having computer problems. Indeed, I am actually on a back-up PC (my last one), which is slow and cumbersome compared to the newer one. Here's the problem: It is acting like the Hard drive is not there and therefore can't load up. I get this (or something along the lines of):
Verifying DMI pool data..........
BOOT FROM CD/DVD
DISK BOOT FAILURE. INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
At this point, I should point out I have had this problem before and have, up to now, always been able to get things working. Mind you, last time it took a week. Anyway, eventually, when things do start to work, I would get the following message after a restart (or a lot of restarts)::
Error loading operating system.
At this point I am ready to jump for joy, as it means I can restart once more and the whole thing will load up normally like nothing was wrong - so I don't think there is physically anything wrong with the hard drive. Thankfully everything is backed up on my external hard drive, sans a couple of songs I bought on iTunes.
Any suggestions / hints?
In terms of hard drive failure, I have only suffered one failure about ten years ago. I managed to restore everything apart from some assignments in PDF format which were corrupted. I have never been in the habit of performing backups on personal systems because anything I have paid for I just put onto flash drives.
ReplyDeleteI lost about $100 of music from Bigpond Music when they shifted from DRM-protected WMA to MP3 format because I couldn't back the licenses up in time so I lost 'authorization' to burn the music to CD. What a disaster DRM is, I won't touch any video downloads that don't allow outright purchase. Movies and TV Shows from iTunes are 'infected' with DRM, which prevents copying to DVD or USB drives. That's why I stick to Movieberry or Legalsounds.
As I'm sure you are aware, if a drive fails, stop using it immediately and buy a retail replacement (you will need the operating system CDs/DVDs). This protects against overwriting any data. Then DIY restoration software will perform miracles.
If the hard drive symptoms keep happening, I would just shell out $50 for a replacement drive and just 'clone' your drive. I did that last year because I knew the drive was 'dying'. I thought it was simpler & cheaper in the long run than being forced to try & restore data when it actually fails. 'Cloning' may take a few hours, but with a new hard drive you feel bullet proof. Whirlpool forums is a fantastic resource for information where the gurus will be only too happy to help!
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/?action=threads_search&q=cloning+hard+drive&f=10&fg=-1
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/?action=threads_searchft&q=%22Error+loading+operating+system%22&f=10&fg=-1&m=