Recovery from bad HDD

F

fstreed

New Member
My wifes desktop, which is running XP Home, has a problem. It is an AMD XP3500 IIRC, running on a Biostar MOBO. It has two HDDs, the one with XP is a 160 GB SATA. The other drive is a 40 Gig with a Linux distro loaded on it which she never uses.

The problem started about two weeks ago. The computer boots OK, but it displays a message on bootup about wanting to run chkdsk. If you let it run it gets part way then hangs up. If you cancel chkdsk on bootup it boots and then after about 5 minutes the computer freezes. Every thing works fine up to that point. It freezes even if you don't do anything but let the computer just set after booting. I tried doing a system restore but it won't restore. I tried defragging but that tells me to run chkdsk first.

I have managed to backup a few smaller files in the short time before it freezes but she has tons of photos and stuff and the computer locks up before I can even get close to backing that up.

I think there is a registry problem or problem with the HDD. If I boot into the Linux OS every thing works fine which makes me think it isn't a memory problem or the MOBO.

FINALLY, MY QUESTION:
Can I unplug the drives and install a new SATA HDD and reload XP, with that drive set to boot, then plug the old drive in as a secondary and access it from my new drive in order to rescue data and files?
 
If you are able to access all the files fine in Ubuntu, then yes, a reinstall would work probably. However, hold on and see if anyone else has any ideas.
 
Try getting out a Windows XP disk and try chkdsk in Recovery Console. If all goes well, you can then try running sfc /scannow in there to search for missing or corrupted Windows files and replacing them.
 
lucasbytegenius said:
Try getting out a Windows XP disk and try chkdsk in Recovery Console. If all goes well, you can then try running sfc /scannow in there to search for missing or corrupted Windows files and replacing them.
Click to expand...

I tried that, it freezes. But thanks for the input. I'm kind of a dummy about this kind of stuff, know just enough to get in trouble. ;)

I just got back from Staples, bought a new 1TB SATA drive (Seagate Barracuda 7200 RPM, $80). It is formatting now.

Hopefully this goes as planned. If not I might have to invest in some recovery software.
 
Man, formatting a TB drive should take a long, long while :D
It should work-If you can get to the files with Linux, you can get to them with XP.
 
bkribbs said:
If you are able to access all the files fine in Ubuntu, then yes, a reinstall would work probably. However, hold on and see if anyone else has any ideas.
Click to expand...

The Linux distro is Suse 10.0. I can't open her Windows files with it. However when I boot into it everything works as it should, or as good as I ever got it to work anyway, it doesn't freeze or lock up.
 
update

I loaded XP on the new HDD, then hooked up the old drive with the problem as a secondary drive (easy with SATA). I could access the data on the old drive and I managed to save about everything I wanted.

I also discovered the file that is causing the problem. I tried running a virus scan (BitDefender) a couple of times, once from within the old drive when it was booted, and again from the new drive after I configured it. I noticed it locked up on the same file both times. In my wife's My Pictures folder is a sub folder she created and named "x". The folder contains a few pictures, she's not sure how many, that she said she tried to "compress" in order to email them. If the mouse cursor so much as passes over this folder the computer locks up. It even does this when booted into the new HDD and accessing this folder on the old drive as secondary.

I then took out the new drive so I could work from the old drive with it booted. I tried several freebie registry cleaners but that didn't fix it. I did discover that by disabling the antivirus program I can keep the computer running as long as I stay away from the offending file.

Any ideas on how to get rid of this file (can't delete it because as soon as the cursor touches it the 'puter locks up)? Any fixes?
 
I can't get it to boot in safe mode. It gets to a certain point and hangs up.

Does anyone know of a way I can delete that file? Anything that touches it causes the hang-up. That is why it will only run with anti virus turned off. Otherwise it freezes up as soon as BitDefender tries to access that file. Is there a way I can do it from a command line like in linux? I am not real computer savvy so I would have to be walked through it.

I have never heard of a problem like this. Leave it to my wife to invent a new way to crash Windows!
 
lubolat said:
Hi, try using command prompt. Go ahead and see this link, it'll explain the DEL command:

http://www.computerhope.com/delhlp.htm

Let us know how it worked out.
Click to expand...

Thanks, lubolat. I tried using the command prompt to delete the file. The system would freeze. I tried to delete the folder, same thing. I then tried using something called MoveOnBoot. It managed to partially delete the file, at least XP no longer recognized it was there, but it wouldn't delete the folder that contained the file.

I finally managed to delete it by trying various linux live CDs I had on hand until I found one that would let me access the folder and delete it, Fedora Live did the trick.

Unfortunately the problem isn't gone. I think the HDD is corrupted, I don't know if it is an actual physical problem or just a mft error. I have managed to retrieve all the data my wife wanted to keep and I have a new hard drive all loaded and ready to go so at this point I am just trying to fix it just to see if I can.

My thanks to all the people on this and other forums who have given advice, without you guys dummies like me would have a hard time of it. :)
 
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