Unbootable media: experiences from the pond scum levels.

Trusty older Lenovo t61 7664-A18, really good kit. Been great for ` 7 years.
XPSP3OEM, no floppy.
Suddenly shutting down and reboot pops up BSOD: "unbootable media". Eeek.
Reboot loop: goes nowhere.
No modes booted
Last known good...pfft

Ok maybe time is up

Google, google: Disc corrupted, HDD controller busted, disc 'broken"... "write off" ... etc
Suggestions re XP recovery console to try and read disc and salvage data, or run chkdsk.
- BootCDs
- Put disc in freezer etc etc

Go to 'tool box":
Seagate tools: disc passed.
Looking like corrupted files.
So then boot recovery console off spare XP CD: Unreadable disc. !!

OK, so, a bit of a mini project now...bit late in the day, so just a couple of runs at recovery or diagnosis with tools at hand or readily available.

Try vanilla Hirens CD, MiniXp: loaded but screen res all wrong could not see icons probably my fault with something, not willing to spend a day getting drivers etc. Hirens not as simple as it looks.
Not really willing to pfaff with Barts PE, or, UBCD, but I likely will now.

KnoppixCD: unreadable disc : Wow: that never happened before.
Multiple listings for corrupt blocks etc

Last shot: took HD out of laptop ( the Lenovo Lappies have really good access to relevant HW bits. )
Mounted in USB chassis to desktop: DesktopXP could see the disc after a bit of jiggling with computer mgt. Could see both partitions: C drive and Lenovo recovery.
Plain chkdsk could not complete: unreadable data
Ran chkdsk options >> then all data visible and data files intact AFAICS.
Copied out what I needed.

Replaced HD, rebooted lappie: working !!

how about dat.

Get messages about Lenovo service apps having problems but otherwise looks ok.

Now of course disc prolly slightly damaged: decision re replacing disc: would make a really nice linux box for the kids, or go for some new bits with extra Ram and try W7.
W7 upgrade might be a step to far for this laptop.

Likely upgrading all boxes soon: HW and W7: Reminder to self: make recovery disc.

Just a little story.
regards.

 

Company I used to work for wasted lots of money on a contractor to fix a broken server that would not boot (because at the time I was not very experienced with server hardware), towards the end of the week the server was in our office and one lunchtime I thought to unplug and replug the raid controller and it booted up fine afterwards.

My T61 is my personal laptop that gets used daily - Max out the ram to 4GB ram, put a nice fast HDD in (not worth putting an SSD IMHO) and it will do great with Win7 (Lenovo released drivers and supported Win7 on the T61).

 

That is interesting: rethinking options.
Now: you know where to get W7 DVD ??

OOI, Fred Langa just posted this article re repair discs

http://windowssecrets.com/top-story/emergency-repair-disks-for-windows-part-1/

 

This ISO is still available on Digital River (http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...snt-seem/4789ffda-14d7-419c-92cf-662b56ef408c), but you need need key to activate it.