HARD DRIVE FAILED ,HELP PLEASE

[robione]

It would appear my hard drive on this computer has failed.My problem is its under extended warranty from Tiny and they have gone bust,but Time who have bought them said they will repair it in there w/shop as opposed to the original agreement to have somebody here within 2/3 days to repair it on site.It will be away 2/3 wks.Nightmare.Have spoken at lenght to operators to resolve the problem,and was finally put though to an engineer who suspected the hard drive had failed and said get it back to us and we will repair it.It is taking massive lenghts of time to fire up, and even longer to open even the smallest program.It took 12 hrs to run scandisc,yes 12 hrs and numerous attempts by me to repair the errors on the hard drive.Its now given up the ghost and is saying;SCANDISC ENCOUNTERED A DATA ERROR WHILE READING THE FAT ON DRIVE C. THIS ERROR PREVENTS SCANDISC FROM FIXING THIS DRIVE.In general i guess its ******ed.The system is 18 months old, Pentium 3,733mhz,20gb hard drive,128mb ram dvd/cd.I dont want it away 3 wks and want to get a hard drive myself and pop it in.Im not that clever when it comes to computers ,ive only changed the modem in it once after lightning strike,but im pretty confident if its pretty straight fwd ide like to change it myself.Advice please will be gratefully accepted,its due to go back on Friday so ive got couple of days to make a decision,im not to bothered about the warranty going if i repair it myself cos i guess thats what will happen if i do.Just really dont want to be without it for that long.Advice please

[malanda]

Well, firstly I agree that it's probably your hard disk gone. But if you're really lucky, it may just be lose connector. Unplug & reseat the cables at either end. Also make sure the power cable is connected properly. (Actually, if there's a spare power connector, it may just be worth a try using a different one).. .. .If you do fix a lose cable problem, the bad news is you've probably written bad data to your disk, so it won't be good-as-new. But you should at least be able to get most of your data back. (scandisk won't have done you any favours in this respect, either).. .. .Assuming you do need a new disk, you need to find a suitable replacement. Without knowing what your existing disk is, and your requirements, I can't recommend what to get. email me at [email protected] if you need more help with this. I recommend <a href="http://www.ebuyer.com" target="_blank">www.ebuyer.com</a> as a good cheap place to buy hardware (so long as you know what you want).. .. .To replace the disk, make a note of which way round the connectors are (often they have a key which makes life easier, but not always). Then pull all the cables & unscrew the old disk. Did I mention switching the power off first?. .. .You may need to unclip a few bits to get the disk out depending on the case layout & what other boards you have in there.. .. .You need to check that the jumpers on the new disk are set correctly. It should be set to 'master' - they usually come that way, but check.. .. .Then insert the disk & connect the cables.. .. .You may need to go into the BIOS setup to get the system to recognise the new drive. Do you know how to do this?. .. .You then need to reinstall all your software & restore your data. How successful this is will depend on what the manufacturer gave you & what backups you have.. .. .If you're feeling a bit more adventurous, it is possible to change the old disk from 'master' to 'slave', and put both disks in the machine. That may allow you to recover things off the old disk. (I'm assuming that you have an IDE cable with 2 connectors. If not, there should be a second IDE socket on the motherboard - you'll need to find a second cable & set both drives to 'master' in this case). Worth a try, though.. .. .Good luck!

[PPRuNe Pop]

Under the Sale of Goods Act you have certain rights which do NOT need to be addressed by the seller - even if they have gone bust. Although Time have an obligation, I would have thought, to honour Tiny's committments.. .. .Be that as it may. If there is a manufacturers warranty on the hard drive, you may go straight to the manufacturer for a repair OR replacement. Opting for the latter is the best option. That is the law. You can check it out for yourself.. .. .Don't be fobbed off. Providing there is an existing manufacturers warranty they must do something.

[RFCC]

If it is a genuine hard disk failure, contact the manufacturer. They will have a form on their website (difficult if you've got no PC!) where you enter the hard drive's details, ser no. etc. Most have at least a 2 year new for old warranty where all you pay is the postage.