Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:02 +0100, in sci.electronics.design Eeyore
wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham


try a linux cd-live boot disk, may be of some help.Some linux things
state they can recover windoze stuff
FWIW I tried the latest Ubuntu CD live yesterday, thought it was not
very good, possibly a bit joe public!

Knoppix may be better ,more nerdy, (Warning 1980's graphics)



martin

martin griffith wrote:

try a linux cd-live boot disk

I did that a while back.

Neither Ubuntu or Xubuntu would work. I'm very unimpressed.

Graham

Meat Plow wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.


If the drive spins up and locks in RPM and the actuator does click or
thrash and it's recognized by the BIOS then the data is recoverable by you
with the right software.

That's sort of what I was thinking. The drive is very quiet so it's not easy to
determine if it's spinning even. That's why I had it ! Even head movement is near
silent normally.

There's certainly no 'thrashing' though.


The CRC is an error that the data you're trying to read does not pass a redundant
check so you may have some bad blocks on the drive.

Again, that was roughly my thought. In years past I'd have used Norton disktools with
some certaintly that it would find what's up. Not sure what to do now. It's formatted
as FAT(32) not NTFS if that helps.


Graham

Meat Plow wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
martin griffith wrote:

try a linux cd-live boot disk

I did that a while back.

Neither Ubuntu or Xubuntu would work. I'm very unimpressed.

Doesn't surprise me especially if it was formatted in NTFS.

It wasn't. FAT32. Call me a 'stick in the mud' if you like but I like stuff I
know works.

Graahm

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


Meat Plow wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I
restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't
restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen
anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS
found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary
drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did
load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic
redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed
for
example.


If the drive spins up and locks in RPM and the actuator does click or
thrash and it's recognized by the BIOS then the data is recoverable by
you
with the right software.

That's sort of what I was thinking. The drive is very quiet so it's not
easy to
determine if it's spinning even. That's why I had it ! Even head movement
is near
silent normally.

There's certainly no 'thrashing' though.


The CRC is an error that the data you're trying to read does not pass a
redundant
check so you may have some bad blocks on the drive.

Again, that was roughly my thought. In years past I'd have used Norton
disktools with
some certaintly that it would find what's up. Not sure what to do now.
It's formatted
as FAT(32) not NTFS if that helps.


Graham


There's some really good tools out there, unfortunately I forget the name of
the one I used, but I found a free demo of it online a couple years ago.
Google for data recovery software and try one out. A word of caution though,
if the data is valuable, take the drive to a pro, you risk destroying it
beyond recovery by attempting to recover it yourself.

Meat Plow wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Meat Plow wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
martin griffith wrote:

try a linux cd-live boot disk

I did that a while back.

Neither Ubuntu or Xubuntu would work. I'm very unimpressed.

Doesn't surprise me especially if it was formatted in NTFS.

It wasn't. FAT32. Call me a 'stick in the mud' if you like but I like stuff I
know works.

Well the linux kernel has no problems mounting FAT partitions. I use my
FAT formatted SD camera card here in Kubuntu all the time. And I prefer
NTFS over FAT any day

My reason for sticking with FAT was that I wanted W98 compatability.

Graham

James Sweet wrote:

There's some really good tools out there, unfortunately I forget the name of
the one I used, but I found a free demo of it online a couple years ago.
Google for data recovery software and try one out. A word of caution though,
if the data is valuable, take the drive to a pro, you risk destroying it
beyond recovery by attempting to recover it yourself.

Thanks for the input. There's nothing on it of such value that I can't live
without it !

I am however curious since I've not come across such a fault before and I'd like
to attempt a fix if only as an exercise.

I've never previously 'lost' or needed to 're-install' an installation of
Windows you see. Short of total mechanical/electrical failure I'd like to
maintain that record.


Graham

James Sweet wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I
restarted Windows (XP btw FWIW).

snip

There's some really good tools out there, unfortunately I forget the name of
the one I used, but I found a free demo of it online a couple years ago.

I recommend tools from Ontrack (A well-known hard disk software and data
recovery company located here in my home state); I frequently
use ODRN (Ontrack Data Recovery for Netware) and it has worked wonders
to salvage file systems despite significant bad blocks and failing servo
tracks. There are other versions of ODR for other O/S platforms.
FWIW I also use an antique version of Norton Diskedit (DOS) to work at
the sector level on scsi drives.

Regards,

Michael

Meat Plow wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Meat Plow wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Meat Plow wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
martin griffith wrote:

try a linux cd-live boot disk

I did that a while back.

Neither Ubuntu or Xubuntu would work. I'm very unimpressed.

Doesn't surprise me especially if it was formatted in NTFS.

It wasn't. FAT32. Call me a 'stick in the mud' if you like but I like stuff I
know works.

Well the linux kernel has no problems mounting FAT partitions. I use my
FAT formatted SD camera card here in Kubuntu all the time. And I prefer
NTFS over FAT any day

My reason for sticking with FAT was that I wanted W98 compatability.


Ah Win98, that's fair. Some like the simplicity of it. I use linux for
internet and XP for video/audio production.

I'm keen to explore Linux but my results to date haven't been very promising. It seems
to me that the much-touted 'live' CDs require a fairly modern PC to run. The trouble
is that they give no indication of whether or not the PC can support it or not.

I will keep trying though. I have another 'box' in mind.


Graham

In article aezni.5188$bP4.1959@trndny01, James Sweet says...

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


Meat Plow wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I
restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't
restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen
anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS
found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary
drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did
load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic
redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed
for
example.


If the drive spins up and locks in RPM and the actuator does click or
thrash and it's recognized by the BIOS then the data is recoverable by
you
with the right software.

That's sort of what I was thinking. The drive is very quiet so it's not
easy to
determine if it's spinning even. That's why I had it ! Even head movement
is near
silent normally.

There's certainly no 'thrashing' though.


The CRC is an error that the data you're trying to read does not pass a
redundant
check so you may have some bad blocks on the drive.

Again, that was roughly my thought. In years past I'd have used Norton
disktools with
some certaintly that it would find what's up. Not sure what to do now.
It's formatted
as FAT(32) not NTFS if that helps.


Graham


There's some really good tools out there, unfortunately I forget the name of
the one I used, but I found a free demo of it online a couple years ago.
Google for data recovery software and try one out. A word of caution though,
if the data is valuable, take the drive to a pro, you risk destroying it
beyond recovery by attempting to recover it yourself.

The disk drive manufacturers often have recovery tools. I had to do
that recently. Made a DOS disk booted to the recovery tool and sent it
discovering and marking bad sectors. I had symptoms similar to Grahams,
the machine was locked in a continuous reboot cycle. After marking the
bad sectors the machine booted and recovered the lost files (one of the
few things I appreciate about XP). I then transferred to a new HD.

Robert

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 01:27:10 +0200, martin griffith
wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:02 +0100, in sci.electronics.design Eeyore
wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham


try a linux cd-live boot disk, may be of some help.Some linux things
state they can recover windoze stuff
FWIW I tried the latest Ubuntu CD live yesterday, thought it was not
very good, possibly a bit joe public!

Knoppix may be better ,more nerdy, (Warning 1980's graphics)



martin


Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.

Why would ANYONE still be pounding around on a sub 100GB drive?!

OLD...

SLOW...

AND DAMN LIKELY TO FAIL SOON!

msg wrote:

James Sweet wrote:
Eeyore wrote:

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I
restarted Windows (XP btw FWIW).

There's some really good tools out there, unfortunately I forget the name of
the one I used, but I found a free demo of it online a couple years ago.

I recommend tools from Ontrack (A well-known hard disk software and data
recovery company located here in my home state);

They're still around ?

I have used Ontrack tools in the past but I imagined they'd gone the way of all
things.


I frequently use ODRN (Ontrack Data Recovery for Netware) and it has worked
wonders
to salvage file systems despite significant bad blocks and failing servo
tracks. There are other versions of ODR for other O/S platforms.
FWIW I also use an antique version of Norton Diskedit (DOS) to work at
the sector level on scsi drives.

Yes. If only a modern OS would let you do that !

I well recall a specific instance where I'd goofed slightly due to poor
documentation (jumper settings in the early days of IDE master/slave drives) and
thankfully didn't panic and **** up. Norton sorted it. But then again, Norton
wasn't Symantec back in those days.

Don't you love it when Norton says 'this drive has a damaged partition table.
Would you like to recover it ?'

Graham

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:35:51 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:



martin griffith wrote:

try a linux cd-live boot disk

I did that a while back.

Neither Ubuntu or Xubuntu would work. I'm very unimpressed.

Graham


Those are live/install CDs.

Try KNOPPIX 5.1.1

It was the first, and is the best live bootable, useable as a recovery
tool CD (from a certain POV).

Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?

Graham

Spurious Response wrote:

Eeyorewrote:
martin griffith wrote:

try a linux cd-live boot disk

I did that a while back.

Neither Ubuntu or Xubuntu would work. I'm very unimpressed.

Those are live/install CDs.

Yes. And that is a good or bad thing in exactly what way ?


Try KNOPPIX 5.1.1

It was the first, and is the best live bootable, useable as a recovery
tool CD (from a certain POV).

Ok. I'll take a peek at that.

Graham

Eeyore wrote:

msg wrote:
FWIW I also use an antique version of Norton Diskedit (DOS) to work at
the sector level on scsi drives.


Yes. If only a modern OS would let you do that !


Indeed (notably 'modern' OSes from large multinationals). However, I
do have some pretty useful low-level scsi tools on Unix (SVR4, BSD)
but I cannot down systems to shuffle bus assignments for drive
testing so I appreciate the usefulness of the old Norton tool
and with scsi, one is not hampered by BIOS geometry restrictions
and translations and the tool will work with any drive size
permissible within the standards.

With Diskedit, one can search for a string across the entire drive;
many times this has permitted me to locate and edit a Unix password
file at the sector level, to gain access to and recover a system
lost to its administrator.

Regards,

Michael

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...


Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?

Graham


Well you can get a Seagate 300 GB for $89.90 shipped from a couple places
listed on pricewatch, but that's not really relevant here anyway since the
data is the item of discussion, not the failed drive it currently resides
on.

msg wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
msg wrote:

FWIW I also use an antique version of Norton Diskedit (DOS) to work at
the sector level on scsi drives.

Yes. If only a modern OS would let you do that !

Indeed (notably 'modern' OSes from large multinationals). However, I
do have some pretty useful low-level scsi tools on Unix (SVR4, BSD)
but I cannot down systems to shuffle bus assignments for drive
testing so I appreciate the usefulness of the old Norton tool
and with scsi, one is not hampered by BIOS geometry restrictions
and translations and the tool will work with any drive size
permissible within the standards.

With Diskedit, one can search for a string across the entire drive;
many times this has permitted me to locate and edit a Unix password
file at the sector level, to gain access to and recover a system
lost to its administrator.

***HOT*** !

Graham

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:24:40 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:



Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?


Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor...

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:28:08 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:

Those are live/install CDs.

Yes. And that is a good or bad thing in exactly what way ?

Keyed more toward installing. Knoppix is keyed heavily toward good auto
detect routines for hardware, and a great driver compliment. So it
nearly always gets you into the gui, and if the drive lives, you'll see
it. Burn a disc or two of it's contents and make a doorstop out of it.

Spurious Response wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?

Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor...

All of which are brands history has noted for premature failure.

There's only one brand of HDD I learned to trust and that was Quantum.

Graham

Eeyore wrote:


I'm keen to explore Linux but my results to date haven't been very
promising. It seems to me that the much-touted 'live' CDs require a fairly
modern PC to run.

Don't give up, Linux is very rewarding and worth the effort! I run Kubuntu
on a PIII 500MHz desktop with 384MB RAM and it gives me no problems. I also
have Linux on a Duron 1300MHz desktop with 384MB RAM, an HP Omnibook 6100
laptop (PIII 1GHz, 384MB RAM) and a Duron 1600 with 1GB RAM I use as a
server. None are what I'd describe as fairly modern!


I've successfully run other distros on old hardware as well. The only
problems I've encountered have been graphics related, i.e. the card or
monitor being incorrectly identified resulting in a sync output
incompatible with the monitor and a blank screen, or issues with
PCI/interrupt routing. Both have been very easily fixed though- one thing
Linux doesn't lack is documentation, FAQs and howtos!

However, while Linux generally runs on just about anything, (sometimes with
a bit of tweaking), like just about all modern OSes it does like a lot of
RAM. You can just about get away with running X on 128MB but I wouldn't
recommend less than 256MB. Laptops can be tricky (wireless LAN etc) but
still not too much bother if you can find open source drivers for some of
the 'funny' hardware they often have.

Morse

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.


They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.

Nah. It's well beyond that period.

Graham

Eeyore wrote:
Spurious Response wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?

Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor...

All of which are brands history has noted for premature failure.

There's only one brand of HDD I learned to trust and that was Quantum.

Never tried one after their eighties problems with severe sticktion.
Loved their fix, too; make the motors pull harder to break the heads
loose.

--
Postulate a group whose intent is to destroy the United States from within
via anarchy and bankruptcy. The actions of the United States Congress are
completely consistent with the actions one would predict from such a group.

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.



They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


Heck, they aren't even called "IBM" any more.

--
The e-mail address in our reply-to line is reversed in an attempt to
minimize spam. Our true address is of the form .

CJT wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.



They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


Heck, they aren't even called "IBM" any more.


Well, even IBM had SOME standards. They ran their hard drive
division into the toilet, then liquidated what was left, to another
company.


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:02 +0100, Eeyore
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.

As for the CRC error, I don't understand why invoking a file on the
[good?] master drive would be a problem, unless the slave was hanging
up the IDE channel. To eliminate this possibility, I'd move the
Deskstar to the secondary IDE channel, on its own, configured as
master.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham

AIUI, when a 512 byte sector is written to a HD, the HD's controller
calculates a CRC for that sector and writes it to the HD. When the
data is retrieved from the HD, the controller recomputes a new CRC and
checks to see that it matches the one that was recorded with the
original data.

I'd use the manufacturer's diagnostic utility to do a sector by sector
scan of the HD.

IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test:
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Or you could try Scandisk with a thorough surface scan.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Eeyore wrote:

"Michael A. Terrell" wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.

Nah. It's well beyond that period.


So, its 'bloody' junk?


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:54:44 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:



Spurious Response wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?

Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor...

All of which are brands history has noted for premature failure.

Could you make any more of a nebulous remark? For one thing all drives
eventually fail. "Premature failure" is about as off the wall as it
gets.

There's only one brand of HDD I learned to trust and that was Quantum.


Which has just as poor a record.

You need to look at the numbers. Seagate has made millions of drives.
Quantum? Not nearly so many. So seagate could have ten times more
drives fail in a given period and still have the same record as quantum
with their single failure for each ten.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:35:44 -0500, CJT wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.



They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


Heck, they aren't even called "IBM" any more.


All IBM drives are STILL called IBM drives.

ALL NEW drives made in said IBM facilities are now called Hitachi
drives, since Hitachi bought IBM's HD manufacturing arm and related
technologies.

In message , Eeyore
writes
I've never previously 'lost' or needed to 're-install' an installation of
Windows you see. Short of total mechanical/electrical failure I'd like to
maintain that record.
Get a copy of Spinrite. It works for errors like the one you have. There
are other tools which are for filesystem corruption and lost
files/partitions but it sounds like you have something a little 'lower
level' than that.


Graham



--
Clint Sharp

In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 06:04:13 GMT, "Michael A. Terrell"
wrote:

CJT wrote:

Michael A. Terrell wrote:

Eeyore wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.



They aren't called "Deathstars" just to be cute.


Heck, they aren't even called "IBM" any more.


Well, even IBM had SOME standards. They ran their hard drive
division into the toilet,

Bull****. Maybe from a sales POV. IBM is (was) at the pinnacle of HD
storage technology. They were the leaders which WD and Seagate followed.
IBM was the leader in MR Head technology, and had the record for lineal
density on horizontal method MR technology. They also have their own
perpendicular recording mode work that was top notch. Do you really
think Hitachi would have wanted to buy a dog?

then liquidated what was left, to another
company.

Nice try. Do you even know how much they got for it?

"Clint Sharp" wrote in message
...
In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but they
both do the same thing.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:49:05 -0400, "Michael Kennedy"
put finger to keyboard and composed:


"Clint Sharp" wrote in message
...
In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but they
both do the same thing.

All the references I can find say that one should use cmd.exe wherever
possible and that command.com should be used only for DOS apps that
have trouble running under XP. One major difference appears to be that
the latter doesn't support long file names. Another is that XP batch
language is much more powerful than that afforded by command.com. In
any case, cmd.exe is XP's native CLI, and command.com is for Win9x and
DOS.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

"Franc Zabkar" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:49:05 -0400, "Michael Kennedy"
put finger to keyboard and composed:


"Clint Sharp" wrote in message
...
In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but
they
both do the same thing.

All the references I can find say that one should use cmd.exe wherever
possible and that command.com should be used only for DOS apps that
have trouble running under XP. One major difference appears to be that
the latter doesn't support long file names. Another is that XP batch
language is much more powerful than that afforded by command.com. In
any case, cmd.exe is XP's native CLI, and command.com is for Win9x and
DOS.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.



I assumed that command.com was included for legacy support as you have
confirmed.

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:02 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:

Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham




go to grc.com and buy SpinRite - well worth the money ($19 ish???). It
has various different recover methods and will sample damaged sectors
hundreds of times (if necessary) and use statistical analysis to
rebuild damaged blocks. It can take days on a deep dive, but if the
data is that valuable...

You should still replace the drive once it is recovered so clone the
disk onto a new one but this has saved my arse and that of lots of my
customers many times. People know they should backup stuff but most
don't. Spinrite has only been 100% effective on two occasions but
that was down to drives with cascading failures - prolly cause the
flying height of the head was compromised - dust or sunnik got loose I
reckon. It can handle your CRC error by sampling the sector many times
and rebuilding the checksum. Might take a day or more so be prepared.
It did with a 120G IBM deskstar that I recovered a while back.

Take the drive out of the current machine and put it in a known good
machine - just in case hardware faults associated with the motherboard
in the original machine are ensuring data is written badly - I have a
micro ITX board that does this - I keep it for what I don't know -
maybe I'll put a SATA card in the single PCI slot )

Spinrite comes as an ISO image that you burn to a cd and then boot. As
it is looking at the structure of the data as written to the disk, it
doesn't care what format it's in (on the deepest dive that it).

HTH

F

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:54:44 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:



Spurious Response wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Spurious Response wrote:

Jeez! 300GB UDMA drives are $59 now for the high end.#

Made by whom ?

Western Digital, Seagate, Maxtor...

All of which are brands history has noted for premature failure.

There's only one brand of HDD I learned to trust and that was Quantum.

Graham


hmmm... not convinced on the maxtor side of things... I have read
loads but I use lots of maxtor kit and have only had a single drive
fail (80G) years back.

Most of the systems that I use/put together use RAID5, 10 or at the
very least 1. So a single failure isn't an issue so long as you deal
with it quick enough and not just sit on it like one customer. "Oh
that red light has been on for months but it all seemed OK" Struth!

Maxtor comes with 3 year warranty so any that fail in a RAID setup
would be replaced no probs and if they fail after the 3 years, who
cares? prolly long overdue for bigger, better, faster drives anyway.

F