[clug] Hard disk problems

[Eyal Lebedinsky]

John,

This is an all too common occurance. Disk will do this to you.

First: I am not familiar with this specific machine and others
may have more specific (and effective) advice.

If your backup is recent enough then you are better off
restoring it (to a new disk) and forget about the disk.
You can then follow up with a rescue plan for fun or to
recover some important recent files.

<You did not hear this from me>
The disk not seen at all suggests a logic failure.
The noise description would suggest a mechanical failure.
I suspect the latter is the case, which is not a good thing.

For a logic failure or if if it only made clicking noises
then I would try the electronics solution where you replace
the pcb with one from another, identical, working disk.
Again, this may just kill the working pcb at times (but this
never happened to me).

When I had mechanical problems it was with very old disks.
As a last resort I will remove the disk and give it a sharp
kick with a small hammer on the motor center. It often
revives it enough to recover. It sometimes has no effect.

If the noise is from a head crash then the above procedure
will not help at all. Recovery is a much more involved
and difficult process in this case.

Still, the hammer solution is a fine and fun way to spend
a dark and cold Sunday.

As usual, you do any of the above on your own responsibility
- do not attempt if you are not comfortable with such
'delicate' operations or cannot take the risk of it causing
even more loss than just the disk.

When you are done with it, dismantling a disk will give you
some very strong magnets and shiny shiny disks.
</You did not hear this from me>

Cheers
	Eyal

jhock wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> I have an Eee pc 10 H.  When I start it up I get a:
> 
> "Reboot and Select proper Boot device
> or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key"
> 
> At odd times the hard disc squeals like pig and its getting worse each
> time I start up the PC.  To me it sounds like the hard disc has crashed.
> 
> In the bios the IDE configuration can't detect the Primary IDE Master
> nor the Primary IDE Slave.
> 
> I can boot Ubuntu 9.04 from a USB drive but it doesn't detect the hard
> drive.
> 
> Is there anything I can do to get some of the stuff off the hard drive
> or is the hard drive stuffed completely?
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> John

-- 
Eyal Lebedinsky	(eyal at eyal.emu.id.au)