Help...Hard disk problem

[kennethniel]

Hi I have hard disk problem...I recently bought a second hand hard disk...just 20gigs, apparently it crashed...i restarted it then on the boot screen....it displays "disk drive read error, press ctrl+alt+del" after i had enough with that warning display...i formatted my laptop...installed a fresh windows xp...then not so long enough it crashed again with the same error i'm having.

Then I brought it to the one who sold it to me, he told me nothing is wrong with the hard disk, it has something to do with a virus, he cant even access "windows files" via slave drive, the same error keeps appearing, so he formatted it again then suggested to me to install another fresh windows, then still....when i went home and had it done...there it appears again.

My question is, is there really a virus that can actually "destroy" a hard disk? seems like my hdd is now just good for an external hdd, can i make it as a external hdd without having to worry about having my primary drive be infected?

 

[N3051M]

there are virii that can "destroy" a HDD, but lets just say its as good a chance as you winning the lotto and building yourself a spaceship to travel to mars in your natural lifetime..

so i gather that you've installed this in your laptop for your primary HDD? try downloading and using a disk diagnostic utility from the manufacturer's and running that on the HDD in question to find out the fault if its recoverable or not. You can also try your luck with a regen software and see if it works..

Get full refund if you can't do anything with it. But know this is one of the types of risk you get from buying second hand..

 

[kennethniel]

thanks for that reply man...but still, if ever i would just use it as an external drive, i mean having it on enclosure, do i need to worry about having my primary drive be infected with it?

sadly, i cant get a refund...coz it is not stated on our agreement and the hdd is on good condition when i got it, and getting a "virus" is not covered on our agreement.

 

[N3051M]

you shouldn't get any troubles with it.

I think it was a MBR issue when you got the HDD, not a virus (most likely scenario) but if you want to make double sure that there's nothing on the HDD you can perform a low level format (which will bring it to almost factory condition, everything reverted back to 0's on the HDD) which will wipe everything.