I know it sounds like the HD has gone. but...

[miracleboy]

I just want to make sure.

Basically went to the PC on Sat and it was hung, so I rebooted it and it ran POST fine - no issues whatsoever, and then displayed the Windows XP screen - then the monitor goes dark, then black (what I mean by this is my dead pixel disappears too), then goes dark again (dead pixel back). Then it won't do anything - I noticed also that the keyboard stayed illuminated but the num lock light went out.

So I thought it might be the drive, so I ran the WD diags (it's a 150GB Raptor) and it came up with a 0008 handling error on the quick test. Then when I ran the extended test it said it had fixed the error. But still won't boot and everytime I run the extended test it says there is no error. The quick test gives the 0008 error every time.

I burnt Knoppix to a disk and ran that and I can browse the HD in question, just not copy off it due to all my drives being NTFS.

Now all of a sudden, Knoppix won't load - it sticks at the Checking USB devices bit.

I tried swapping out the RAM and that didn't have any effect, and also ran Knoppix with both HD's disconnected - still failed to load.

Any ideas - is this defo my drive gone? About to RMA to WD but just wanted to check first.

 

[SiriusB]

If you're still having issues even when your drives are disconnected then it would point to something else being the cause of the problem.

Have you tried the drive in another machine? If it works fine there then you deffo have a problem elsewhere.

SiriusB