Harddrive failing

[Ydoow]

Alright here's the low-down

I was given a computer (11 years old Dell) that would endlessly reboot, after BIOS loaded it would display a quick message that I believe said "Invalid Boot Directory" or something along those lines, it flashed by too quick too read.

I put in Ubuntu 10.04 live cd to figure out what was going. During the installation process Ubuntu said there was no OS on the drive and wanted to use the whole thing.

However, looking at the partition table I could see /dos and /windows as possible mount points.

I exited the installation and went right to the live cd part and found a 54gb drive available (harddrive is 80gb total)

"Great!" Thought I.

"Now I can just copy the files over and save them!" But naive was I, and Ubuntu was quick to point that out.

Well rather, it was slow. 15 seconds later it spat back an "Input/Output" error and was unable to mount the drive.

I then ran some harddrive tests and it came back with a couple of bad sectors, but it didn't say the drive was failing interestingly enough.

So any suggestions on how to save the data? I have a spare HD upstairs I can plugin, I also have a flashdrive to use.

But my most obvious issue is getting the Drive to mount. I'm not sure how to handle this

[Ziff]

I'm having a hard time understanding what the real issue is. The old drive was a Windows OS drive, yes? And you want to save the information on the 11 year old drive, or just get it to boot? If all you want is some files off it, install an OS on your spare HD and then mount the old drive as a slave so you can access it and copy what you need. If it fails to read or mount at that point, the drive is likely failing.

The last time I had an invalid boot error on a drive that caused it to reset repeatedly after bios, it turned out it was an invalid boot.ini file and running the Recovery option off the Windows OS CD fixed the problem. It's been a long time since I did anything with Ubuntu though, so I dunno why it won't mount the drive.

[Ydoow]

Yeah the goal is just to get the files off. It won't mount though, that's my issue.

I'm trying a program I found called ddrescue, although it's just installing it is giving me issues. I think it's because I'm using an old version of ubuntu.

I wanted to do a windows recovery, but it's Windows XP (I don't have it) and the original CD has been lost to the nether realm.

I just installed Ubuntu 10.04 on my spare HD and hooked up the Failing HD on the side, just as you said, but I noticed immediately that the Grub Boot Loader flashed the HD in red and didn't give me the option to boot from there, and now Ubuntu isn't even showing it

I'm really hoping something like ddrescue will be able to spot the HD, or it's something simple like me not hooking it up correctly.

[Ziff]

I am almost willing to bet you can find a .iso file of the windows recovery tool only somewhere on the net that would allow you to make a bootable recovery CD without the full Windows OS CD. The drive won't mount in Ubuntu, but it's still recognized in the bios right?

[Ydoow]

I haven't checked in BIOS yet, but the GRUB Bootloader finds it. As I said, it flashes the title "Maxtor 80Gb" in red at while it checks the drives for valid Boot directories. After that, though, I can't find it.

I'll check out the boot recovery. It should be worth an investigation tomorrow.

[Joe Pinball]

"find" yousrelf a copy of Hiren's BootCD

Boot said CD, select the Mini Windows XP

run partition find & mount thats on the Live XP you've just booted

copy off all you can grab (try RoadKil's Unstoppable Copier, bung it on a pendrive)

Joe