hard drive failure?
Dec. 13th, 2004 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eiriasI think my hard drive died this weekend. Win2K computer, going on 4 years old, just did a clean reinstall in late June. This evening, got an error message:
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt.
\system32\ntoskrnl.exe"
Unfortunately, my system repair and Win2K disks are at school, so I stuck in a WinXP CD and poked around in the Recovery Console. It gave me a c:\ prompt and I tried to look in different directories - access denied for all directories tried (including winnt, dell, documents & settings...). Config.SYS and IO.SYS and other files seem to have a size of 0 bytes. I ran a chkdsk and it kept starting over and then told me there were one or more unrecoverable problems.
If any of you know Windows - does this sound like a hard disk failure? How does one investigate such a thing? What would I need to know in order to hook my hard drive up to another computer without frying them both? I do have an adapter (though it's at the office at the moment).
People who respond with a suggestion like, "Switch to [fill in non-Windows OS here]," are missing the point and will be summarily kicked in the nuts, and you won't get to look all clever and snide, either, because I'm screening comments.
As it happens, I backed up all of my documents about a week ago; but unfortunately this doesn't include things like the exam I was working on on Friday night (1.5/10 questions answered) or the ten-minute presentation I wanted to give on auditory illusions tomorrow, which may have to be skipped now unless I can get access to my prof's laptop. I think/hope/pray those are the only recent successes I've lost. No - damnit, I just realized, tomorrow's 8:30 AM six-minute presentation is gone too. Hopefully I can wing it.
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt.
Unfortunately, my system repair and Win2K disks are at school, so I stuck in a WinXP CD and poked around in the Recovery Console. It gave me a c:\ prompt and I tried to look in different directories - access denied for all directories tried (including winnt, dell, documents & settings...). Config.SYS and IO.SYS and other files seem to have a size of 0 bytes. I ran a chkdsk and it kept starting over and then told me there were one or more unrecoverable problems.
If any of you know Windows - does this sound like a hard disk failure? How does one investigate such a thing? What would I need to know in order to hook my hard drive up to another computer without frying them both? I do have an adapter (though it's at the office at the moment).
People who respond with a suggestion like, "Switch to [fill in non-Windows OS here]," are missing the point and will be summarily kicked in the nuts, and you won't get to look all clever and snide, either, because I'm screening comments.
As it happens, I backed up all of my documents about a week ago; but unfortunately this doesn't include things like the exam I was working on on Friday night (1.5/10 questions answered) or the ten-minute presentation I wanted to give on auditory illusions tomorrow, which may have to be skipped now unless I can get access to my prof's laptop. I think/hope/pray those are the only recent successes I've lost. No - damnit, I just realized, tomorrow's 8:30 AM six-minute presentation is gone too. Hopefully I can wing it.
