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possible dying hd

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Lander

Registered
Joined
Aug 6, 2004
Right now im sitting here running knoppix, lol anyways heres the story, my friends computer died on him and i offered to fix it, it wouldn't let me format using ntfs so i had to throw fat32 on the system, after getting xp pro installed and everything updated and a few other things, i got sum weird errors and went to restart it when it restarted it gave me the screen with options like start windows with last known working config and safe mode and stuff, i tried em all and all i get is bsod and the instant restart sumtimes i can't even see the bsod at all it restarts so quickly, so now i am here hoping to find that it is not a dying drive. its about a 20gig maxtor i believe if you need more info i'll see what i can do.
 
i don really know what knoppix is, but try to install windows and see if it will let you format using ntfs(it should, don see y not). if it works w/o any error, then i guess it doesn't like to be set to fat32.
 
knoppix is like a Operating System .
it boots off a cd, like a cd rom drive if your HDD goes out .
 
thats strange it wont partition in ntfs. i didnt even knew that win xp pro installed in fat32. rather interesting but still thats messed up. i second the idea that its dying. just get the data you need off of it quick. i have always had problems with the partitioning software, so maybe that got farkled? just throwing up some ideas. happy troubleshooting.
 
ok well heres the really weird thing that will either let you know whats going on or blow ur mind or sumthing, i can actually format it with ntfs, but when i do that windows cannot install, it says it fails to install everything. Quite odd, anyways i'll try and do sum diagnostics and such and maybe i'll zero the drive but im not going to do it right away cause i am sick of fixing computers at the moment, everything that could go wrong has this week.

Here is a recap, got a new motherboard yay, lets install it, oops didn't remove drivers windows xp is mad, repair installation, no go, swap original board back in, no go, repair install, no go, try to figure out how to get rid of the drivers from mandrake, can't mess with windows partitions, no go, guess i'll just use knoppix to move stuff around, computer froze, huh weird restart, oh great processor is fried, pos case with no airflow, so anyways my xp 2500 got here today bye bye 2400 stupid 256k l2 cache is gone for good, still pissed it died on me. anywho as soon as i get my new hsf and case in the mail i'll be building my new system.

anyways lets see if the new info i just gave you helps at all, i'll see what i can do about diags.


Btw knoppix is a linux distro that boots and runs entirely from the cd, it is suprisingly quick for running from the cd rom and ram, it gives sumone new to linux a very nice experience it is also good for recovering files. I actually plan to install knoppix on a system once i have a box i can dedicate to it because so far knoppix is actually my favorite distro, ive used redhat 9, mandrake 10, and 8 i believe, a suse live demo disk, and maybe another can't remeber, but given that i am basically linux retarded knoppix comes with the built in features that i want and need. 2 cents
 
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your drive is failing, hmm interesting, lol anyways where do i go to enter this could for rma'ing, apparently the drive is dying oh well its not mine lol, my friend will prolly just tell his parents the whole computer is shot so he can get a new one. anyways thanks for the help and if you can give me the directions to where to rma that'd be cool, i'll look around myself while i wait.

edit: nvm found out how, i'll do it later though i don't feel like pulling the hd out to figure out the serial.
 
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