When hard drives are having problems,there are many things we can do. But when hard drives are dead or are non bootable anymore we have only a few choices. First we can check them with software, that is made by the manufacture of the drive. This software is available at the manufactures site for free.
Now we are going to use, a western digital hard drive as an example. We will need the use of a computer with internet access.
The free choice is Ultimate Boot Cd For Windows. This is an ISO download of 256MB An ISO is an achieve of files, using a conventional ISO (International Organization for Standardization) format that is supported by many software vendors.
ISO image files typically have a file extension of .ISO
an ISO image includes all the data of files contained on the archived CD/DVD.
They are stored in an uncompressed format. In addition to data of the files it also contains all the file system meta data, including boot code, structures, and attributes.
After we have downloaded UBCD4 Windows, we will have to burn the iso with software that records cd or dvds such as nero or easy cd creator.
Make sure you use the burn iso feature of the software and not just data cd. If no software is available, on the computer you are using, download ImgBurn current version 2.4.2.0 .
Install imgburn, after installing start up imgburn by double left clicking on its icon, On its start up you will see a menu. Next left click burn inage to disk.
To the right of source left click on the folder to the left, it will have a pop up browse for a file.
Make sure there is a blank cd in your cd burner.
go to the area of the hard drive where the file UBCD4 windows is located.
And then select burn image, after the image is burned it will be a bookable maintenance disk. Make sure on the computer that the hard drive is not working, you go into the bios of your motherboard and make sure its set to boot from cd first in the boot sequence section.
On some computers its your delete key to get into bios others it might be f1 check your manual or computer manufacturers site to be sure.
Next place your Ultimate boot cd for windows in the cd drive and reboot it. When it restarts it will start up from the cd in the drive.
It will usually take about 5 to 7 minutes to boot up fully, then go to start programs and then to diagnostics.
Then look for WinDLG 1.02 This is the western digital software your going to use to check the hard drive.
Follow the easy instructions for a quick test.
Sometimes this software can fix drive errors, and sometimes it cannot. There are many areas you can check out your drive with this cd.
Under the partition section you can test and sometimes fix a bad master boot record, there are mbrwiz, mbrfix and bootbuild.
If all these fail all is not lost,but the free option is gone. There is a program made by Gibson Research Corporation, called spinrite 6 this software is not cheap about $100.
Use the same method you used on UBCD4 windows. Booting up the computer with spinrite 6, you will have a few options the most intense scan is level 4, this level takes a while to run usually overnight.
Spinrite will always automatically make the necessary changes to your drive to fix the errors. I have fixed many hard drives with spinrite some that the manufacturers software said the drive was bad.
Sometimes its possible to resurrect a dead hard drive, or bring one back from the dead,it just takes some time and the right tools and know how.
