Dbast
asked on
Could the hard drive failure imminent warning be a symptom of something else?
My Compaq Presario gave the same warning, and I did get all the data files backed up. But the system is exhibiting other weird symptoms as well: The power button is very quirky -- sometimes it won't turn off after holding in the button the usual way; sometimes it takes three or four attempts to turn it off before it works, ditto with turning it on. I can put a Windows install CD in the drive; sometimes it reads the drive, sometimes it does not. When it *does* read the drive, the picture on the monitor shakes and shimmies so much I can hardly read what's going on.
Alll of this makes me wonder if it's a motherboard or power supply or controller of some sort that is going out ... and if that's the case, is it possible the hard drive itself is still good?
Alll of this makes me wonder if it's a motherboard or power supply or controller of some sort that is going out ... and if that's the case, is it possible the hard drive itself is still good?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER
3mp3ror:
The device for connecting the hard drive via USB seems like a great idea -- much less mucking around than all the mounting and remounting. Price seems good for something that could be so useful. Will give it a try. Ralph and dbrunton, are you familiar with such a thing?
The device for connecting the hard drive via USB seems like a great idea -- much less mucking around than all the mounting and remounting. Price seems good for something that could be so useful. Will give it a try. Ralph and dbrunton, are you familiar with such a thing?
You can connect it via USB. Best is a direct connect rather than USB though. But the device specified would be handy in any case.
_3mp3ror_ don't mention [ILLEGAL BOOT-LEG SOFTWARE] or your posts will be removed by the moderators.
_3mp3ror_ don't mention [ILLEGAL BOOT-LEG SOFTWARE] or your posts will be removed by the moderators.
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
for a desktop, it can be bad capacitors, check for bulging or leaking ones.
you can run a burnintest, it may show the problem better : http://www.passmark.com/download/index.htm
to be sure if it is hardware, run from the live Knoppix cd - if that keeps running ok, the problems seem Software, if not, Hard : ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V6.0.1CD-2009-02-08-EN.iso
you can run a burnintest, it may show the problem better : http://www.passmark.com/download/index.htm
to be sure if it is hardware, run from the live Knoppix cd - if that keeps running ok, the problems seem Software, if not, Hard : ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppix/KNOPPIX_V6.0.1CD-2009-02-08-EN.iso
ASKER
Ralph and dbrunton: I appreciate the suggestion of pulling the drive and testing it in another machine. That's the direction I'm leaning but wanted some confirmation that this would be a reasonable step to take.
dbrunton: I've downloaded UBCD. Looks like a useful thing not just for this mess I'm facing, but possible future messes as well.