Corrupted HDD on Packard Bell laptop?

[dtokez]

Hi all.

I'm trying to fix up my Dads Packard bell laptop, only just over 2 years old. It wasn't booting and blue screened with a 'unmountable boot volume' error message.

I took the hard drive out and tried to read from it, there are two partitions and one is un-readable and needed to be formatted - the other just has lots of random boot files so not really sure what that is about?

I thought it looked like we were going to loose the data, and began a system restore, using the restore DVDs that we were prompted to burn when we first set up the laptop.

After booting from the first disk, about 5-10 minutes of 'loading files' it comes up with a Java script error and reboots, and continues in this loop.

So gutted because it has hardly been used really - not sure what to do with it next?

Any suggestions guys?

Dan

 

[MADMAN]

its perhaps the recovery partition which has odd looking files.

Id run hirens boot cd and test the hdd, or google packard bell hard drive diagnostic cd, should be available on packard bell support website also.

It runs a short or long test to see if the hdds failing.... if it is then u need a new one sadly.

 

[dtokez]

Excellent, thanks very much! Just having a look at the hirens CD, any Hdd diagnostic app in particular that you would recommend?

If I have to change the hdd, should the recovery dvd's I have bring back the OS?

edit - might be a silly question but where do I download hirens from? Cant seem to find a link on this page http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

 

[MADMAN]

http://www.findthatfile.com/search-13212341-fEXE/software-tools-download-diagcd23.exe.htm

try this, its a packard bell hdd test cd, u can run a short test and long test, id run both just to make sure...

this will confirm if the hdds faulty or not, but yeah if it is u just need a new hdd and u can run the recovery cds onto the new hdd without issue.

 

[MADMAN]

yeah hirens boot cd also contains a list of manufacturer hdd diagnostic tools, u can also check the brand of your hdd via the bios, and also download the hdd diagnostic tool directly from the manufacturers website, ie seagate.com its seagate tools

hopefully the link i posted above is allowed cos its easier for you to run that test

 

[dtokez]

ah thanks a lot mate, really appreciate that. I'll have a bash with the Packard bell cd later when I'm home.

 

[MADMAN]

it may take few hours to run

but at least u know what the next step is to fix the lappy at least

 

[dtokez]

Hi mate, got the cd in the laptop now - but when I start a full hard drive test it seems to hang on 'finding drives'

Any ideas? I guess this could be a symptom of the hdd being dodgy

 

[Hagar]

What model of Packard Bell is it?

 

[edscdk]

take the disk out and run a chkdsk on it... this will most likely fix your issue

 

[dtokez]

its a easynote tj65 I think

Ok Ill take it out again and try chkdsk on it

cheers guys

 

[MADMAN]

Hi mate, got the cd in the laptop now - but when I start a full hard drive test it seems to hang on 'finding drives'

Any ideas? I guess this could be a symptom of the hdd being dodgy

thats not a good sign at all in fact usualy says its a dead hdd.

if the hdd does not get detected in bios (press f2 or delete) and check if hdd is showing.... or try chkdsk in case, otherwise like i suggested earlier if u know the manufacturer grab the hard drive test free from the manufacturers website.

ie western digital, google western digital hdd diagnostic etc

that is the best way to confirm hdd failure.

still feels since packard bell test showed it struggled with the hdd so its not looking good tbh.

 

[dtokez]

take the disk out and run a chkdsk on it... this will most likely fix your issue

10/10 for that man!

chkdsk has fixed the errors - took ages but it did the trick

many thanks all

 

[coupe69]

What errors did you get? Any bad sectors?