Hello,

After being away for a week I started my PC but it would not boot. I have a dual-boot of Windows and FC4 using grub. Upon starting it tries to read from the primary disk but fails. The bios returns "strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility". I've booted from a 'Rescue is Possible' (RIP) CD and tried to boot the separate partitions (both FC4 and windows) but these fail, returning "Error 27: Disk read error".
The FC4 partition uses LVM and when I try to search for LVM partitions from the RIP CD, it returns "/dev/hda: read failt after 0 of 4096 at 0: Input/output error".

All these test seems to confirm my fears that the disk has crashed rather bad.

If anyone has experience with further tests to find what the problem might be, or knows how to recover any data that is on the disk, please let me know.

Kind regards,
Regulus

Is the drive clicking or ticking? I'm not talking about the normal noises a drive makes when being accessed, but more down the lines of a very distinct clicking or ticking.

If so, then you most likely have a failing drive. The keyword is failing. Read on...

There are many disk diagnostic utilites available for doing hardcore testing of a disk, and they can usually be obtained for free download from the hd manufacturers websites.

However, I would strong DIS-ADVISE you from running one of the applications right now, they have heavy disk i/o and could damage the disk further during their tests.

Heres what to do:

Try mounting the partition that contains your data. Do it from another machine or while booted from a live-cd. If the drive clicks or ticks and never mounts then you need to try some new things.

Take your hd, put it inside of a ziplock bag and stick it in your freezer. Let it sit for a while. You really cannot leave it in TOO long, but I usually leave them in for a half day or overnite.

When you're ready to try mounting again, take it out and IMMEDIATELY start trying to mount it. If it mounts then you need to work fast. Grab just the stuff you want to save. If the drive begins to fail again then re-do the procedure.

In the 10 years that i've been in business for myself doing technical services I have succesfully recovered data from countless near dead drives with the freezer method.

There are other tapping methods that work well to, but these are hard to explain how to do.

Good luck.

i've used this method a couple times also... but i just wanted to point-out that it's a good idea to wrap the disk with a few layers of paper towels or something before putting it in the ziplock bag...

You can always try loading KNOPPIX and see if it at least recognizes your drive. If not, then just start whacking it...carefully of course.

Yes, this is OK. Tap the drive on its sides.

Usually what I do is plug the drive in, connect the cables and turn on my external enclosure. If the drive doesn't spin I pick it up and hold it on the sides and then with a screwdriver I LIGHTLY-TO-MODERATELY tap the sides of the drive. If it starts to spin you should be able to mount.

Sometimes drives that are very close to failing will stop spinning if they are held at different angles. AND THEN, some will actually spin for long periods of time if held at odd angles.

Again, good luck. And if it does start to spin then go for just the data you want first...

Then this:

At least if it dies during the copy you know you got the data you want beforehand.

Scott

I did this once.

In case the steps are not clear.
You need some sort of back up media and working OS besides the failed disk. Knoppix and a USB, a new hard disk with a working OS or etc.
Turn off autodetect in the BIOS for the failed hard drive. It may be necessary to move the drive to secondary rather than master. In any case disable the correct drive.
I worked from shell scripts on the working OS to quickly mount, ls > file (on good drive), umount, to determine what I needed to copy. Then again from shell script mount, cp (-R), and umount.

I believe the problem with my drive was failing electronics rather than the disk or heads being physically damaged.