Slow file transfers between filesystems while recovering data from failed drive!

Well, I shut down, and went to start back up, and now, no matter where I try to boot from, be it CD or HDD, This is the output:

L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 
 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 
 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 
 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 
 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 
 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99

Sooo.... =(

BIOS Posts, but it says: Loading from CD-Rom...

or Booting from HDD-0...

then I get that output.



Is there anything to be done, or is everything borked?

BTW: Slack10, if it matters.

Well your going to have to boot from a CD or Floppy somehow to rescue your system. Perhaps your Slackware CD is bad, if its not booting from it.

I just burned the disk seconds before I tried booting from it.

EDIT: I got it to at least try to boot....

"Boot failed, press any key to retry."

=(
(From the CDROM)

HDD still gives me that.



/EDIT

That looks like a LILO problem. Most likely, you upgraded your kernel and forgot to run 'lilo'. Now, you'll need to boot your system from a cdrom, chroot into your hard drive, and re-run 'lilo' to fix the MBR.

System has been running for over a year, no updates =(

It has booted to CDROM after third try, with nothing changed. Something is fishy here....


Nevermind.

Check this out:

Disk error 80, AX = 4280, drive 9F

What does this mean?

That looks like DOS-style assembler issues (aka, not a good thing). Could be failing hardware potentially, but for your sake, I hope not. What kind of a CD are you booting off of?

Slackware bootdisk 1.

And I've tried the Bare.i file. It doesnt work.

Also, a 1-floppy-disk type distro.

Have you tried booting from a LiveCD like Knoppix?

Not yet.

I heard some funny spin-noises, at first I thought they were the PS, or the fans, but after taking the side of the case off, I noticed they were coming from the HDD vicinity.

I got this computer from a friend, complete with a 60gig DeathStar..... Well, it ran fine for months, but it seems to have lived up to its legacy =(

Is there anything I can do? I'd really like to clone this drive..... or at least my hundreds of hours of admin setting =(

Well, you might be able to mount it in another machine and rescue (some of) your data.

Well... I have a win98 install on a 4g drive on that computer......

and a winxp box, but I don t have another linux box

=(


maybe if I let it sit in a staticbag for a week or two it'll rest enough for me to FTP into it from my XP box and download about 10gigs of admin stuff =(

STICK THE HDD IN THE FREEZER

If it is going out, sometimes it works for a few minutes when its cold...make sure to avoid condensation though.

How do I avoid condensation?

Stick it in a ziplock prior to freezing it?

EDIT
Gah... all I need is about 5x - 3 to 100k or less text files.