I'm 99% sure that my drive is a goner

[Stick'o ram]

Today when I turned on my computer my hard drive was making the infamous "clicking" sounds. I thought nothing of it until my computer started to freeze sometimes when I tried to access the hard drive. So every time I tried to quicksave while playing oblivion the computer would freeze and require a hard reboot. Now, itstead of freezing it is turning the screen all blue and windows will no longer starts and my bios freeze when it comes to detecting it. Pretty sure it's a goner, does anyone agree?

Seconed thing, if I do have to buy a new hard drive I'm thinking about just buying a SATA drive. Could I just copy every file from my old drive to my new drive and would it work? Somehow I doubt it though, so in the meantime I'm using Ubuntu on a flashdrive so I know it's the hard drive.

 

[Samstoned]

drive is toast
you may get lucky /unplug drive until you replace then add as slave install as per your OS
if you can see the drive in disk manager hurry get your data
with Ubuntu as OS
if you have a burner
if you see the drive here and you should ,burn data you really want to disc


good luck

 

[Tedster]

you can CLONE your drive over to the new drive, however since you don't have SATA drivers already installed, it won't work. Best bet is to do a clean install on a new drive and salvage or copy your important data to a SATA drive if you go that route. Otherwise get a fast PATA drive and just clone your old drive - if you can.

 

[Stick'o ram]

I think im going to need a RAID driver, I havn't done this before so something new to learn YEA!!! , it came at a terriable cost though...

Thanks for the suggestion of burning things off onto CDs or DVDs but my WHOLE 160 gb is full, I mean it's at 159.9 basicly. I've had to delete things off of it for over a year now to make room for new things.

 

[kimsland]

Well if it becomes a slave, you can delete the entire Windows folder !
And possible Program Files (check data locations first)

This will allow you to have more response in copying files so forth.

 

[captaincranky]

Not So Fast......Er, a Little slower ..... That's It, just Like IDE

I think im going to need a RAID driver, I havn't done this before so something new to learn YEA!!! , it came at a terriable cost though...

Actually you don't need a RAID driver at all! Most motherboards have the option to run a SATA drive as an IDE drive (in ATA100). If you go this route all you need do is set the BIOS in "configure SATA as IDE" (or similar language). In fact, some mobos auto-configure to this setting, when only one SATA drive is found. Read the mobo manual CAREFULLY and THOROUGHLY before charging into the BIOS settings.

Pull your old HDD, and install the new one. Make sure it's the 2nd boot device. The CD drive MUST be the first! After you install Windows on that drive, then put your old PATA drive back in the computer, and attempt to copy your files from it. Best of luck with that last detail. If all goes well, hit the trash can with old drive.

 

[Stick'o ram]

After I put in my new SATA drive (It's a Seagate 320gb SATA/300) I tried to see if Windows would install without extra drivers and it did and I installed all the SATA and RAID drivers after I installed the Windows, in Windows Hardware Information it lists it as a SCSI drive, and with the app my motherboard came with said it was sata with a ATAPI6, shouldn't it be something else? Because I think that's the same as ATA 133.

 

[captaincranky]

That's faster than usual.......

Most boards auto-configure to IDE (without SATA drivers) at ATA-100. It's all a moot point since the drive itself, <(the mechanical spinny, read-y part) won't transfer more than about 60MBs a second, at best. The rest of the SATA2 300MBs is absorbed in the ad hype.

Basically, on it's best day the average drive maxes out at ATA-66, (or DMA4), period.