SATA HDD failure after Defrag

Hello,
This happened on another one of my hard drives, however I wasn't aware of how it happened until now.

PlayByPlay:
Boot PPM10, Start Defrag of C:, 'Needs to Restart', Restart, Boots, begins Analysis of NTFS, I go to bed thinking it's defragmenting, wake up it says "Here are your fragmented files would you like to defrag?".

This is where I say "No! I want to do stuff, I thought you were defragmenting all night.", Cancel.

...
I've tried everything.

Windows 7 Boot: Continues booting operation for hours, HDD activity light is locked ON.
Windows 7 Recoverty: Same Thing
Windows 7 Install CD: Same Thing

Paragon Recovery CD: Boots to main menu. Normal Recovery, Recover Boot, etc... All lock and will not load past the point of "Scanning Partitions//Checking Disk"

This in on TWO computers.


:|

 

If nothing works, I'm going to be buying myself another HDD and then praying that my files on the other disk are recoverable. :|

 

U can get ur data by a linux live CD. Ubuntu or Parted Magic CD.

 

Sounds like a problem with the partition Table.

I suggest you try two free apps:

P W Bootable CD allows user to boot computer directly ...

Burn the .iso to cd - boot it , make sure NUM LOCK is on when you get to the bit asking about screen resolution. Type 1, then press enter.

If it sees the HD, click Disk 1 ( or whatever number it is) at the top of the screen , then Partition Recovery on the left pane.. Do a Quick scan. Tick ALL the partitions you want, OK , APPLY.

If PW doesn't see the HD , use Gparted 3.9.4.iso

http://sourceforge.net/projects/gparted/files/gparted-live-stable/

Boot Gparted cd - if it says the drive is Unallocated , or similar, create a small partition the extreme right. APPLY.

Now boot PW again - it should see the drive and be able to do the partition recovery.

Hope it helps.

 

I'm not getting past the splash screen on PW.

I'm going to try the other one.

 

I hosed my partition table a while back - same thing - I couldn't get any bootable apps. to load - except Gparted.

After making a small partition out of harms way on the right of the HD - it rewrote the table - other boot apps. happily loaded and partition recovery got me right back to where I was before.

NOTE: Gparted will stop while loading ( 3 times, I think) - it is asking about language and keyboard settings. Just press Enter each time - the defaults are fine.

 

Both programs failed me.

First one failed to boot past the splash screen.

Second one got into the GUI (after I prompted boot from RAM)
but when it tries to scan for partitions, the hard drive activity light goes solid and after 10 seconds the window closes.

 

Strange. Gparted found the drive for me even when there was a "missing" partition table.

Nothing springs to mind at this stage,.

Not clear to me how you can get any data off -if you can't access the drive from windows, or from a boot disc.

 

It seems strange that window would even start to boot at all if the hard drive was 'FRIED'. So it can't be fried, YET a boot disk won't even detect the HDD...

What about the firmware on the HDD?

 

If it had been just this one HD - drive controller board issue is possible.

But you had the same problem with another HD - bit of a coincidence.

Do you have another pc to plug the drive into?

 

Yeah.

And to verify the other hard drive was almost 6 years old when it 'broke'. This one is only a few months old.

I've reattempte everything I've done so far, nothing is working. I reset the BIOS, Unplugged the HDD...

When the HDD is unplugged the boot disks are very much successful at starting. However no HDD is detected, for obvious reasons.
I'm ordering a new, much smaller drive, so that I can install my window again. Hopefully with a working operating system I can make this work.

Another point of interest.
With my old drive, if I try to boot from another drive the 'broken' drive appears corrupted. With it's title containing weird ASCII characters and such. Firmware corruption?

 

Good luck with it - keep us posted of any developments - it will be interesting to find out what happened .

 

The problem HAS to be the partition table or the boot record.

I used the same defragmenter on the second partition a few days ago, it was when I tried to use it on the WINDOWS partition that it failed.

What about the Cylinder boundary? Maybe some of the information was pushed past the line. :|

 

I am not expert in this field but if this is partition table problem, then two use full programs to correct partition table are:

Test Disk
Partition Table Doctor

 

Well I'll give test disk a try, I've got an Ultimate Book CD sitting around here somewhere. :[

 

Yahooo!!!!!!!

I got it! Thank you VERY much aigle for suggesting those programs, in my googling I remembered about Ultimate Boot Disk and I ran a couple of low level programs, Partition Table Fix (Test Disk ;]), and with 3 simple clicks I fixed it!
This means I can now restore my old computer as well.


THANK YOU!

Thanks for your support through my troubles SIW2, you're first guess was correct it was a Partition Table error. The programs we tried were too broad scope. We needed low level stuff.
The scan came up with quite the dirty error plauge. Luckily I only lost about 15 drivers and a few system files. (Windows System Repair? ;])

Anyways, thanks again!

 

Great - thanks for letting us know the results.

Surprised Ultimate boot cd would boot and load , if Gparted didn't . I assume you used the System rescue cd module, which includes testdisk.

Happy you got it sorted out.

 

Let see...

Ultimate Boot CD
Partition Tools
Test Disk
>>Loads<<
Select Disk: 1TB Drive
2 Partitions: Windows 7 // Media || Select Windows 7
Shows two partitions: 0 and ###### || Start and End || OK?
Three options: Quit || Deep Scan || Write
Select: Write
Are you sure? y/n || Select Y

Restart computer. Done. :]

 

Thanks - that's interesting. Good to see test disk loaded in your particular circumstance.

Oddly, I got a copy of system rescue cd recently - only to find the more recent recent versions of Gparted have all kinds of issues with ntfs.

I'll stick with the older version.

 

Hmm.

Alright. Thanks again for all of your help. :]

 

happy to know that it worked. I never tried test disk but have very good experience with partition table doctor.

 

The problem was solved. But the question remains, why did the problem happen in the first place? Is this Paragon tool reliable?

 

Such tools can do anything anytime. No matter it,s paragon or some other brand.

 

But it has to be the fault of the boot time defragmenter.

It's happened TWICE, not just a fluke accident. Perhaps at the start of the defragmentation the partition table is edited to suite Paragon's needs, and then if you cancel it fails to rewrite it back to default.

Paragon should check it out