HP Pavillion Toasted Hard Drive??

[JonnyAlpha]

I am trying to repair a friends PC (HP Pavillion t530.uk).
When you power it up all you get is a black screen with a blinking cursor, I suspected a faulty CPU or Mobo as there was no POST Beep but after a bit of playing I reset the BIOS to defaults and now I get the POST screen (where all the devices are displayed and the memory is checked) however after this screen the cursor just appears in the top left corner. (No messages).

Could not access Safe Mode and finally tried the HP Recovery option by hitting F10 however I then get a message HP Recovery not able to recover or something like that? Anyway tried FIXMBR but all that did was stop the HP Recovery even loading.

Tried XP Repair however no OS is found to repair the HP Recovery Partition is still intact.

After reading that someone had fixed this kind of problem by installing XP and then from within windows disk management setting the HP Recovery Partition to active then running HP recovery to reinstall the HP version of XP.

Finally tried a new install of Win XP Home using an XP Home CD and when I tried to format the blank partition (the largest one) it got to 2% and stops, no messages just will not progress.

Looks like a busted HDD?

Any last thoughts before I advise the guy to buy a new Hard Drive and try and blag some HP Recovery CDs from HP. Not sure but the PC is probably more than a year old.

Ta

[ỒĊBłůē]

Can you plug the HDD into another PC to see if you can read it as a slave drive from there?

[fivecheebs]

It sounds bad, but I would try a boot diagnostic tool anyway. Powermax (http://digilander.libero.it/YorkOne/powermax/) is good, but you could also try Ultimate Boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) or even better (if you have the time to make one) Ultimate boot CD for windows (http://www.ubcd4win.com/) which has loads of useful stuff on it in a familiar GUI.

[JonnyAlpha]

Can you plug the HDD into another PC to see if you can read it as a slave drive from there?

Tried that only one partition shows up and its not the boot partition, when I tried using recovery Console there was no X:\WINDOWS partition only an X:\miniNT and X:I386 and I couldn't access either because I do not know the ADMIN password.:confused:

[JonnyAlpha]

It sounds bad, but I would try a boot diagnostic tool anyway. Powermax (http://digilander.libero.it/YorkOne/powermax/) is good, but you could also try Ultimate Boot CD (http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/) or even better (if you have the time to make one) Ultimate boot CD for windows (http://www.ubcd4win.com/) which has loads of useful stuff on it in a familiar GUI.

I have UBCD but I'm not sure what utilities to use to restore the defective partition?:confused:

[fivecheebs]

Lets see if the drive is bad first. getdataback might see the broken partition, and that might allow you to copy the files off it. I dont think its on UBCD, but you can run it from UBCD4win. There are some other alternatives in UBCD4win too, just not as effective IMO.

[JonnyAlpha]

Got a link on another forum suggesting I try a SAMSUNG diagnostic tool which I did:
The first test it ran was a S.M.A.R.T. test which failed.
Next it 2 x Random Surface scans both returning a result of failed.
Then it asked me to run a full surface scan which I started but just got a screen full of LBA errors most the same number.

In a last ditched attempt I ran Free FDISK from UBCD, deleted to offending partition recreated it set it to active and tried to install Windows XP however when formatting the drive it just stopped at 2% again and this time listening carefully I could hear the HDD heads clunking as if they were stuck trying to format the same area again and again.

As I was running out of time I powered off pulled out the HDD and opted to bang in a spare HDD that I pulled from an old TINY PC (20GB) drastic measure but I was in a rush to hand back a semi working PC.

I installed Windows XP Home OEM using the Serial Number from the HP Tower and fingers crossed it accepted the XP Key from the HP Tower OK.
This means I can at least hand back my friend (an OAP) a working PC while I'm away (back to work).

I explained to my friend that his HDD is probably toasted and that to return the HP to its former state he'll need a new 120GB HDD (or there abouts) and either hassle HP for a set of recovery disks or purchase a copy of XP Home, or is it legal to stick with the one I just used and use his own CD key?

Not tried it yet but I know I'll probably have problems activating XP as his key will no doubt have already been activated a problem when HDDs fail. So I'll install WPA K***.

Finally:
Would it be worth trying a LOW LEVEL format on the old SAMSUNG before I ditch it? If it solves the problem I can bang it back in his PC.:-)

[fivecheebs]

Sounds like the drive is toast. I have fixed dodgy drives by doing a zero fill before a format, but they arent reliable any more.

Its fine to use his CD key with any media that it works with. It should also activate fine.

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

Finally:
Would it be worth trying a LOW LEVEL format on the old SAMSUNG before I ditch it? If it solves the problem I can bang it back in his PC.:-)

No. Its a physical drive failure and it will always be unreliable from now on.