hardware failure? please help

[jrobo]

I'm running Win XP SP2 and last night started experiencing some serious issues.

At midnight my AVG (free version) started running its daily scan and I went to sleep. In the morning, I went to my pc to power it down and noticed an error which I should have written down exactly but it resembles this: "Cannot create file D:\$n"

Explorer was visible and everything _looked_ fine, but I was unable to activate "My Computer" and I also could not reboot from Explorer... both functions simply timed out.

I forced a power off by holding down the power button. When I tried to reboot, I got past the BIOS but after that windows never loaded. I observed that all the hard drive lights were on, and the green monitor light was on, but nothing more. I did not hear any unusual sounds from the hard drives.

If anyone has any ideas how to troubleshoot this I'd much appreciate it!

 

[orphy]

I would take my hard drives out and connect them to another machine first then chkdsk /f /r. At the least you might be able to take any important data off.

 

[Hawk1]

First, check all power connections, internal and external (what PSU do you have - system specs would help). Reset CMOS. Try booting from your XP CD and do a repair install. If none of those help, maybe a full reinstall. Other than that, may be PSU/RAM or HDD faliure.

 

[Namslas90]

Good chance your boot drive is near full/or having problems, AV programs need to open a temp folder and a log file; it appears that it could not do this, possably due to lack of space or bad sectors on the HDD.

 

[surfsk8snow.jah]

Ya try safe mode first off, then if that doesn't work, repair install from CD. If you're getting into windows logo at all, means HDD didn't crash on you, just may have bad portions or sectors. Run chkdisk like orphy said, then also reset page file (set pagefile space to 0, reboot, defrag, and reset pagefile to original size - or bigger). Defrag all your drives.
Also check memory, make sure all modules and cables everywhere are securely plugged in.

 

[jrobo]

Thanks to everyone who has responded so far!

It appears that my d:\ drive crashed. As soon as I pulled it from my pc, my C:\ drive booted up just like old times. Lucky for me, it is still under warranty.

With the D:\ drive in my pc, I cannot boot up at all. Is there any reason to suspect that it can be recovered? Or should I just go with the warranty replacement?

 

[Graogrim]

Unless you have some genuinely valuable and irreplaceable information on the drive, I'd say go with the warranty replacement.

That said, your lost data's recoverability depends on the lengths to which you're willing to go. If the system actually refuses to boot with the drive connected that complicates things, but alternatives do exist. First, make sure that it's actually the drive that's failed and not a related component such as the controller or cabling--you can either connect your second hard drive to your primary controller header or try it in a different PC if you have the option. Make sure that both of your drives are, if necessary, jumpered correctly. If you're lucky, the fix could still be easy and you won't have lost any data.

If the drive really is kaput to the point of preventing the host computer from finishing POST then the problem is either physically catastrophic failure in the drive's mechanisms or disk surface, or an electrical fault in the drive's circuitry. If the fault is electrical it is possible to "transplant" the circuitry from a completely identical drive to recover your data. This is non-trivial work best left to professionals, but I have heard of do-it-yourselfers managing this successfully.

If the drive's internal mechanisms are at fault there's probably not a lot you could do except hand it off to specialists who have the proper facilities to attempt data recovery. And pay through the nose.

Whatever you decide to do, best of luck.

 

[surfsk8snow.jah]

Glad you figured out what the problem is!
As far as data recovery, Graogrim covered it pretty thoroughly. When he says out the nose tho, think $1000 or more. Depending on your situation, they may have to literally remove the actual disk from the drive (kinda looks like a CD), place it on a special tray/device, & read it that way, and that device is not cheap, nor is the expertise to do it.