err loud noises = dead HD right? (plus some winXP Qs)

[omi]

just checking, loud crunching noises pretty much means theres physical damage on the HDD=dead or dead soon?

it still works fine at the moment (i have stopped using that PC now)

the SMART utility finds no errors. I am assuming these diagnostics cannot pickup physical damage? e.g a brush breaking or something like that.

if I copy all the data (incl. win XP on it) over using partition magic v8.01 to another HDD will I be able to boot from the new HDD immediately?

if not, running the Win XP repair from the installation CD, will fix it but not overwrite all my settings in Win XP?

thanks

 

[Daniee]

Hey mate, my old IDE 40gb used to make some sort of loud crunching noise, it also went super slow when it happened. I don't know why it happened but when I defragmented the drive it was working fine again. It took like 10 minutes to load into windows but after the defrag it was fine.

I'm not sure but this probably has nothing to do with your hard drive and your noises. I'm just sharing my experiances

 

[omi]

thanks i might try that after i have copied my key files out.