Dead Hard Drive?

Bacon

Bacon

Member
Came home from work today and as I went to start up my computer I noticed that right after I get the "Loading Windows" screen I get a very brief blue screen (too fast to read) and then restarts and does it again.

I proceeded to load up my windows 7 disk and run a check disk from there. It found some errors, so I thought that might be a good or bad sign depending on how you look at it. After it finished I restarted and I got that same brief blue screen.

Next thing I tried was hooking it up to another computer and I can hear it spin up, but I get the same blue screen at the same spot. Also tried running it as a secondary drive, but I can't get the computer to recognize it..

I'm trying to avoid the reformat solution as I've got a bit too much of time put into the data on there to just erase it all and for whatever reason the backup I made a week ago, on my external drive, is gone.

I'm fairly certain it isn't due to a virus and the fact that the computer was running perfectly before I shut it down the night before has me totally confused. Also the hard drive doesn't make any unusual noises.

Wondering if anyone else has any ideas or questions about my attempts at fixing it.
 
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did you try to start with safe mode? If it still blue screens, start it and disable automatic restart on system failure (bottom of the startup menu) and you can report back with the bluescreen code.

You could also always try running a linux live CD like Parted Magic to try and see if you can access your data. Then you can at least put it onto an external hard drive before you wipe the drive.
 
Yea I tried Safe Mode and it stops loading drivers after AVGIDSEH.sys
Might just have to do a live CD. I think I got a CentOS disk hiding around here somewhere.

Btw, BSOD is "SESSION3_INITIALIZATION_FAILED"


I couldn't get my live CD to find my primary hard drive. So I tried hooking up my secondary as well and it was able to find it, but still couldn't find my primary. Also tried running my windows 7 disk again to do another check disk, but I can't get it to find my OS installation. Ended up skipping that part. Started up the command prompt and moved to E: (which was the drive letter I remember having to go to the last time I did a check disk) and ran a check disk again. Seems to have found it..Time will tell if it actually does anything though.

Edit: Good news is the hard drive isn't dead, but I'm still perplexed as to what is causing the BSOD. As we speak I am copying all my files from that hard drive to my external. So if it comes down to it I'll be able to reformat.. Still open to any ideas!
 
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Fixed it.

Turns out my smss.exe was corrupted and AVG quarintined it. Just had to replace it and everything works fine again.
 
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