Recently had a nightmare come true - my hard drive crashed.
I had 2 PCs, one my working machine, the other as a back-up. My newer, working PC, had a dead CD rom drive ever since I bought the thing. Took it back, they sparked it back into life but within a couple of days it died again. Couldn't be arsed with it as I use a usb drive between machines and rarely load any CDs anyway.
Then my backup machine died - wifey put something from work with a virus on it and killed the thing basically. So while saving up for a 2nd replacement as the old one was pretty knackered anyway, have been paranoid about my main hard drive.
Then last week booted up and got "NTDL is missing. Press control, alt and delete to restart" - which obviously did no good as it just gave the same result.
Trying to reinstall Windows resulted in "There is no hard disk drive attached to this device" - and after that just got "Boot disk failure" at every start attempt.
4 years of Biggly source codes and over $2000 of software, gone. I had the source codes from version 1.1 to 2.0 on CD but A. don't trust CDs and B. no software to work with them.
I was not a happy bunny but I don't post this for sympathy but to explain how to fix it if this happens to you. All is not lost, even if it seems to be and 19 out of 20 box-selling "technicans" at local computer stores "recommend" formating the drive.
What I did was to purchase a 2nd hard drive, installed it, just a matter of plugging it in really, then installed windows on the new hard drive. Once booted up I was able to access the original drive as a "slave" drive.
From there I could copy over some of the missing files and could then get Windows to recognise the drive existed, meaning I could reinstall Windows on my original drive. That left my files intact and I was able to remove the new drive and boot up again from the original.
Sounds more simple than it was, not least because the original drive was a "SATA" and it only had one Sata slot/cable but installing an IDE drive worked in the end.
I won't go into the full details as you'll never remember and won't be able to access this post anyway - my point is just remember this - if your PC won't start and says something is missing, it's probably just a corrupt boot sector and installing a 2nd drive may well allow you access.
DON'T take the "advice" to reformat the drive as you'll lose every single thing on your computer, from internet favorites to, well everything.
Hope that helps someone one day! It was actually a week of messing around and talking to some serious idiots at various shops, until I finally found someone with a brain who tested the hard drive and confirmed it could still be accessed. "Not booting up" is not the same as "totally dead".
Obviously if you can try booting in "safe mode" and doing a "system restore" but mine was failing to get that far.
Another tip - never ever update your BIOS. I made that mistake trying to get my built in sound card to work again. The MSI website scanned my machine and downloaded a new update. Sure, the audio worked but it killed the built in ethernet card, so had no freakin' internet access and still don't. In the end had to buy a new PC just to get back online but at least I can access all my files again.
A very stressful week! But like I say, my main point is don't give up on a hard drive just because it won't boot. You may still be able to get to it with a 2nd hard drive.
B.
I had 2 PCs, one my working machine, the other as a back-up. My newer, working PC, had a dead CD rom drive ever since I bought the thing. Took it back, they sparked it back into life but within a couple of days it died again. Couldn't be arsed with it as I use a usb drive between machines and rarely load any CDs anyway.
Then my backup machine died - wifey put something from work with a virus on it and killed the thing basically. So while saving up for a 2nd replacement as the old one was pretty knackered anyway, have been paranoid about my main hard drive.
Then last week booted up and got "NTDL is missing. Press control, alt and delete to restart" - which obviously did no good as it just gave the same result.
Trying to reinstall Windows resulted in "There is no hard disk drive attached to this device" - and after that just got "Boot disk failure" at every start attempt.
4 years of Biggly source codes and over $2000 of software, gone. I had the source codes from version 1.1 to 2.0 on CD but A. don't trust CDs and B. no software to work with them.
I was not a happy bunny but I don't post this for sympathy but to explain how to fix it if this happens to you. All is not lost, even if it seems to be and 19 out of 20 box-selling "technicans" at local computer stores "recommend" formating the drive.
What I did was to purchase a 2nd hard drive, installed it, just a matter of plugging it in really, then installed windows on the new hard drive. Once booted up I was able to access the original drive as a "slave" drive.
From there I could copy over some of the missing files and could then get Windows to recognise the drive existed, meaning I could reinstall Windows on my original drive. That left my files intact and I was able to remove the new drive and boot up again from the original.
Sounds more simple than it was, not least because the original drive was a "SATA" and it only had one Sata slot/cable but installing an IDE drive worked in the end.
I won't go into the full details as you'll never remember and won't be able to access this post anyway - my point is just remember this - if your PC won't start and says something is missing, it's probably just a corrupt boot sector and installing a 2nd drive may well allow you access.
DON'T take the "advice" to reformat the drive as you'll lose every single thing on your computer, from internet favorites to, well everything.
Hope that helps someone one day! It was actually a week of messing around and talking to some serious idiots at various shops, until I finally found someone with a brain who tested the hard drive and confirmed it could still be accessed. "Not booting up" is not the same as "totally dead".
Obviously if you can try booting in "safe mode" and doing a "system restore" but mine was failing to get that far.
Another tip - never ever update your BIOS. I made that mistake trying to get my built in sound card to work again. The MSI website scanned my machine and downloaded a new update. Sure, the audio worked but it killed the built in ethernet card, so had no freakin' internet access and still don't. In the end had to buy a new PC just to get back online but at least I can access all my files again.
A very stressful week! But like I say, my main point is don't give up on a hard drive just because it won't boot. You may still be able to get to it with a 2nd hard drive.
B.
.
