Re: Is my hard drive toast???

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"fohcue" <UseLinkToEmail@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:3_1137854_84c07dfc8ac451c707b02b616f0f7d29@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>I am trying to find out if my hard drive has died. In my Dell
> Optiplex150, it has a (small) 20Gb drive.This is the original drive
> that came with the machine. When I was playing a game online at a
> popular game site, the screen froze during play and I had no
> alternative but to force the machine to turn off by holding the poer
> button in. I restart the machine ( I use WinXP w/ service pack 2) but
> before windows comes up it detects that it has been improperly shut
> off and auto -runs the chkdsk tool. I am unable to skip disk checking
> by pressing a button so it proceeds. It hangs when it gets to the 50
> % mark ( checking the free space). I attempt to restart the machine a
> number of times but always , it hangs at the 50% mark.
> Next what I did was remove the battery on the board so that hopefully
> chkdsk wouldnt run. I put the battery back and start it again and
> this time, I am able to stop chkdsk from pressing a keyboard button( I
> found where to enable the setting that allowed this, in the
> bios)...Windows slowly comes on ....but it is very abnormal. If I
> simply move the mouse , the reaction time is soo slow , its
> rediculous. The icons were having problems just trying to appear.
> Anyway, obviously , something is wrong. Next thing I did was make the
> 6 floppys needed to boot from floppy and either reinstall windows or
> use recovery console etc; I chose to format the drive on the new
> partition I just created....and before allowing setup to run the
> install, it has to once again, check the drive.
> At this point now it goes up to 72% where it then hangs and does
> nothing more. if I select the option to (quick) format NTFS drive it
> gives me an error message.....the long format ...hangs at 72%. The
> error message is as follows:
> The followingvalue in the .SIF file used by setup is corrupted or
> missing: Value 0 on the line in section [ Source Disks Files] with key
> "SP2.cab."
> Setup cannot continue. to quit setup press F3.
>
>
> I think my drive is dead . What do you say?
>

Run a hard drive diagnostic. The manufacturer of the hard drive will most
likely have one available at their website. You just run it from a floppy.


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