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Disk I/O Error-->Hard Drive Failing?

I have an IBM Deskstar Hard Drive, 40GB, 7200RPM. It is partitioned into an 11 GB primary(NTFS) for programs and 27GB secondary(FAT32) for Data.  I have been using my computer running WIN XP for a few years. Today the computer just shut down all of a sudden (went through the Win XP shutdown procedure). I started it again and noticed when I started windows Explorer, it would freeze when trying to read my 27GB partition. I restarted a few times, and soon my computer would not boot, not even to safe mode. I installed Win XP on an old 2GB Hard drive and running off that, I tried to copy some data from my 40GB hard drive. I can read the 11GB partition and copy data with no problems. When I try to copy data from the 27GB partition, I often get an "Error copying file or folder: Cannot copy *filename*: Cannot read from the source file or disk". It is then impossible to copy that file. Windows seems to hang for long periods of time when I am browsing this parition as well. This leads me to two questions.

From the sounds of it, is my hard drive failing? I find it strange because then 11GB partition seems to be ok. If it isn't failing, can I somehow repair the 27GB partition?

Also, if I do just need to copy whatever data I can from the drive, is there a better way to do it cause everytime I copy a folder, if there is one file that cannot be copied, I get that error message and the copying process stops. So then I have to individually select the files and avoid the bad one (which takes forever!). Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you.
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Avatar of Adrian Dobrota
For copying the files w/o stop use DOS copy command.
Probably your hdd is failing. Use the tool for analysing IBM hdd's from their site , or use Norton disk Doctor, but I'm afraid your drive is developing bad sectors FAST , so I reccomand backing up data ASAP and THEN diagnose. Maybe one of those tools will be able to repair, though I doubt it.

Cheers
Kronos
Does sound like the drive's going, while you hunt down all those lovely utilities, have you tried running checkdisk with the "scan and recover bad sectors" option?
Avatar of R Kelly
R Kelly

You can use xcopy with the -c switch to skip bad files and continue copying. Also consider a virus, do you have up to date virus definitions?


Best Regards,

Engellan
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When I tried running Error Checking on it, it just froze at the beginning. I bought an 80GB drive and installed WInXP on it. After I hooked up the 40GB as my Primary slave, I tried copying my data from the 40GB and everything worked, dont' know why.I restarted WinXP while I was installing some programs on my new drive, and then it gave me a message saying that one of my disks need to be checked for consistency(the 27GB partition on the 40GB drive), it did the check, said it made some repairs and then booted. I don't know what happened to the drive. I had McAfee virusscan running before, the definitions were about a month old. I'm trying to figure if the drive is really failing, there was defnietly something wrong as I couldn't read the 27GB partition before and Win XP wouldn't boot. I did try booting off the 40GB drive again(the OS is on the 11GB partition) and it still doesn't work. I've tried looking for IBM Diagnostic software but I can't find it. Does anyone know where I can get it?
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SKG...we don't have news from you.
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best regards
Thank you much.    : )
Had a very bad experience with Ontrack. stay away if you can.