----- Original Message -----
From: "Alasdair Ross" <alasdair.ross@???>
To: "HantsLUG List" <hampshire@???>
Sent: Tuesday, December 05, 2006 10:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Hampshire] Dead/Dying HDD
> OK, so after further googling, it appears that the "atapi.sys" error with
> windows can be caused by faulty memory.
> Will Memtest86 check for faulty memory?
>
> -Alasdair-
>
> On 12/5/06, Alasdair Ross <alasdair.ross@???> wrote:
I presume this is 5th December
> >
> > Hello,
> >
> > So, it's the night before I have to give a presentation (which I was
> > working on) and the Hard Drive on my laptop appears to have decided that
now
> > is a good time to die. I have an Advent 7027 running Windows XP SP1 and
> > Kubuntu 6.06 in dual boot.
> > The symptoms under windows are random BSODs (with errors such as
> > "Unknown Hard Error" and "Kernel_Data_ Inpage_Error" and references to
> > atapi.sys) and the system locks up at random intervals after
increasingly
> > short periods having booted up.
> > The problems first occurred under Windows however, when I tried
booting
> > Linux it just locked up. The HDD light stays on and it sounds like it's
> > doing something, but it doesn't get anywhere and requires a cold
restart.
> >
> > My questions are:
> > 1. What tools can I use to determine if it is a faulty HDD?
> >
> > 2. If I were to purchase a new HDD (most likely bigger than my current
> > one), and assuming I can still read the old disk, could I copy
everything
> > currently on the old disk onto the new one in such a way that I could
just
> > swap the new one in and boot straight away without losing data or
partition
> > info? (Could I dd the old disk to the new disk and then use a tool to
> > resize the partitions to fill the empty space on the new disk?).
> >
> > I'm quite out of my depth here but I'm willing to give just about
> > anything a go. I would like to image the old drive onto the new one as
I
> > only have the system restore disk for windows so reinstalling is not
> > possible. Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to set up the VPN
> > connections to my university under Linux so it is not yet possible for
me to
> > drop Windows completely (although rest assured, I am seriously
considering
> > going "Free" with my next PC purchase).
> >
It is possible to retrieve all your ur hard disk settings providing the hard
disk still runs. This means that your should be able to run as before with
a new drive.
I have just spent since Saturday retrieving data from trashed partitions
using software that I had to spend several hours searching for.
Incidently I transfered all the data from a 40gb hard drive on my laptop to
an 80gb hard drive via the USB2 port.
I found that my dual boot worked okay in regard to windows but my suse linux
distribution had changed.
I ran knoppix on my laptop. Connected the new hard drive on the usb2 port.
Using dd with a blocksize of 10x1024x1024 I was able to transfer 40GB in
about 31 minutes
If your want manual help retrieving the contents of your hard disk and
getting your windows running with your previous settings again I may be able
to do it. I do not know enough about about linux to give any help in
getting the linux to work. It can be tricky determining what is the best
software to use in a particular situation. I need the practice in improving
my knowledge in the area of recovering hard disk data. Let me know if you
want to take me up on this. (No Charge).
I have the connectors for connecting the laptop hard disk to the USB2 port.
John Eayrs
