My hard drive died!

[KitchenKitten99]

So here i sit on my dear husband's computer, trying to clear out my emails and all that fun stuff.

Yeah, i went to turn on my laptop on Friday night. I get the error that said there were no bootable drives available. Thinking it was a mistake or a fluke because I only had it on 'sleep' mode, I shut down via power button, took out the battery, and restarted.

But i get the same error upon restart.

So, I run diagnostics. System says my hard drive is not present. Which is not true.

I shut down again, take out the drive, inspect it for obvious damage, see nothing strange, and put it back in. I still get the same error message upon bootup.

Dammit!

So I call Dell, they have me run diag's again. Error code is/was 2000-0141. They can't tell me for sure what the actual reason for failure is, but there you have it.

So, new HD is coming out to be by Tuesday and a really awesome friend of mine is gonna come up and see if he can't pull my data off my old one. I have most of my data backed up on my external HD, but I hadn't updated my backups in about 2-3 weeks. Though I do believe that most of the new stuff wasn't anything to really be upset over, I am hoping I can get most of my data, especially my Quicken info and photos.

Geez, what a PITA.

[diuretic]

I keep reading how it's difficult to actually obliterate a hard drive. I think your data is going to be okay - well I hope so anyway.

[KitchenKitten99]

Yeah, JD, my computer-savvy friend is actually a Dell certified tech, and he said he should be able to move most of the info to my external drive and update my backups.

I loaded Quicken onto my husband's computer as a secondary spot in case this happens again. I can redownload all my banking info & transactions, but I have custom-named a lot of them, so I have to recreate them on his computer, and mine, if the info can't be pulled from mine.

[KitchenKitten99]

Got the drive, had my friend install all of it, and he took my old drive home to mess with it and get what info he can, off.

So here goes the fun of trying to locate all my program discs and reloading all them in, as well as downloading various updates.

[April15]

It seems to me that depending on operating system you can go to sys.config and make your old HD an acessory to get info off it.

[KitchenKitten99]

It seems to me that depending on operating system you can go to sys.config and make your old HD an acessory to get info off it.

not with the error I was getting. But my friend is actually doing just that this afternoon when he gets a chance to work on it.

[April15]

not with the error I was getting. But my friend is actually doing just that this afternoon when he gets a chance to work on it.Best of luck to ya.

[Gaffer]

I have had two weeks of no compiter due to a virus or trojan. Not even sure how it got past all my programs. Got a installation disk from dell and tried to reinstall the xp. No good. Got boot and nuke to wipe the hard drive but keep getting a failure. Got kill disk and ran it three times. Completely wiping the hard drive. But still can't get the xp to install. The windows program crashes each time I try to install it.

I'm guessing the virus got into something that doesn't get wiped by the kill disk program. I can't get into anything like config.sys. No floppy so boots from dvd cdrom.

Any suggestions on a program that will wipe everything? I'm using Trinity's pc right now to post this. Will check in periodically.

If I ever met one of these virus creators that release them to the internet it would make national news as his pain and suffering would be astronomical. Not to mention he would never be able to use his fingers ever again.

[Kathianne]

I have had two weeks of no compiter due to a virus or trojan. Not even sure how it got past all my programs. Got a installation disk from dell and tried to reinstall the xp. No good. Got boot and nuke to wipe the hard drive but keep getting a failure. Got kill disk and ran it three times. Completely wiping the hard drive. But still can't get the xp to install. The windows program crashes each time I try to install it.

I'm guessing the virus got into something that doesn't get wiped by the kill disk program. I can't get into anything like config.sys. No floppy so boots from dvd cdrom.

Any suggestions on a program that will wipe everything? I'm using Trinity's pc right now to post this. Will check in periodically.

If I ever met one of these virus creators that release them to the internet it would make national news as his pain and suffering would be astronomical. Not to mention he would never be able to use his fingers ever again.
Hi Gaffer, you've been missed!