[panic!!!!!] D:D:D:

[overlord_steveO]

omfg D:

ok, so my computer locked up. i restarted it, like i would any other time.

so when it booted back up...


i was missing a hard drive.


MY HARDDRIVE.


D:!!!



any idea as to what happened?

[Reveller]

yeah

your hard drive is missing

[overlord_steveO]

yeah

your hard drive is missing

how do i fix it :(?


i must know :(.

[Rob_F]

Saying you restarted an unresponsive computer and lost a hard drive isn't really that much to go on (although what else is there to tell), but it really sounds like a hard drive failure. Is this the main hard drive, or an added hard drive?

Generally when a PATA/SATA hard drive fails in use, it "vanishes" - meaning it simply stops responding to all I/O commands and disappears from the computer's point of view. That appears consistent with what you've described, but only if the failing hard drive was the boot drive or contained a critical file for the OS (ex. pagefile.)

If it was not your bootup hard drive, that sounds a lot more consistent with a controller failure or other electronic failure on your motherboard (or in a freakish case, in the drive electronics.) I've never seen a hard drive fail and lock up the system, unless there was something on the drive that's critical to the OS's functioning.

[FaKToR]

I'm gonna go out on a limb, but I'm guessing you run Win XP so I'd suggest sticking in the install cd and running CHKDSK.

[Captain Colon]

Have you actually turned the power off or did you just use the reset button? One of my hard drives used to wig out (I thought it was a bad sector or something but I ran chkdsk and all it fixed was some file index...and the thing hasn't had any problems since, so whatever)...XP would freeze, then when I hit the reset button the motherboard would just sit at "DETECTING IDE DEVICES" and not do anything (it would still respond to buttons to enter setup and whatnot, just wouldn't detect any devices). When I turned it off for a couple seconds and then back on, everything would be fine.

[overlord_steveO]

Saying you restarted an unresponsive computer and lost a hard drive isn't really that much to go on (although what else is there to tell), but it really sounds like a hard drive failure. Is this the main hard drive, or an added hard drive?

Generally when a PATA/SATA hard drive fails in use, it "vanishes" - meaning it simply stops responding to all I/O commands and disappears from the computer's point of view. That appears consistent with what you've described, but only if the failing hard drive was the boot drive or contained a critical file for the OS (ex. pagefile.)

If it was not your bootup hard drive, that sounds a lot more consistent with a controller failure or other electronic failure on your motherboard (or in a freakish case, in the drive electronics.) I've never seen a hard drive fail and lock up the system, unless there was something on the drive that's critical to the OS's functioning.


it was the D drive, not the C, so i think it was NOT the main drive.


somehow it, is back.... all i did was shut down the computer for the night.

this scares me D:

[Rob_F]

it was the D drive, not the C, so i think it was NOT the main drive.


somehow it, is back.... all i did was shut down the computer for the night.

this scares me D:

Okay, unless you've got your pagefile or something important on the D:\ drive, that sounds a lot more consistent with a controller failure or driver glitch.

Go into Start -> Run, and type "cmd". A console will appear. Type this command, and copy/paste the results here. You can select text out of the console by right clicking and selecting "mark" under Windows XP, or just by clicking the left mouse button and dragging on Win2k.

Here's the command:

chkdsk /f d:

Yes, you can do it through Windows, but the results cannot be copy/pasted directly onto the forums as the GUI version is not very verbose.

[Rob_F]

Have you actually turned the power off or did you just use the reset button? One of my hard drives used to wig out (I thought it was a bad sector or something but I ran chkdsk and all it fixed was some file index...and the thing hasn't had any problems since, so whatever)...XP would freeze, then when I hit the reset button the motherboard would just sit at "DETECTING IDE DEVICES" and not do anything (it would still respond to buttons to enter setup and whatnot, just wouldn't detect any devices). When I turned it off for a couple seconds and then back on, everything would be fine.

Common issue, when Windows goes bezerk it can confuse the hell out of the controller. The same reason actually accounts for a lot of the reason behind why with some hardware you couldn't use loadlin to boot into Linux from DOS after running Windows (man, that was back in the day.) Often the hardware would just not work, or have hilariously unexpected results.

[Mafia Leader]

Heh... personally, I say don't worry about it. I've had that happen to me a few times. As long as it comes back after a reboot, you're generally fine, and it was just a one-off error. If, however, you reboot and it doesn't come back, then it's time to start worrying.

[overlord_steveO]

Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\Tim Steger>chkdsk /f d:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process. Chkdsk may run if this volume is dismounted first.
ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID.
Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N)

D:?

[Modest Genius]

one of your programs was running off D: at the time

try closing everything (including systray stuff) then try again

[FaKToR]

Or run it from the recovery console using your installation cd.

[Rob_F]

Press "Y" at that prompt, and copy/paste the result. I should've let you know that in advance :p

Or run it from the recovery console using your installation cd.

That adds unneeded complexity, although it does allow running CHKDSK without a reboot. If you're willing to instruct him how to do so, go right ahead, otherwise repeatedly suggesting the same action isn't really helpful.

[FaKToR]

That adds unneeded complexity, although it does allow running CHKDSK without a reboot. If you're willing to instruct him how to do so, go right ahead, otherwise repeatedly suggesting the same action isn't really helpful.
You have to be fucking kidding me. You whining about "added complexity".

1. Put in install CD
2. Start computer
3. There's all of 3 options, one of which says repair, hit R
4. Select Windows installation, there's most likely only one listed, select it
5. Enter the Admin password
6. Run chkdsk

That differs from running it normally just barely.

1. Start computer
2. Log on
3. run the console
4. Make sure no processes are using the HD
5. run Chkdsk

It's really no different from what you're suggesting except you don't have to worry about whether the HD is being used or not. If you're just saying it's gonna take a while, well it's going to anyway cause CHKDSK isn't very quick.

I wouldn't have to repeat my suggestion if it wasn't being ignored. Had he taken my suggestion in the first place he wouldn't have had the problem with the HD being in use.

[Captain Colon]

And he also wouldn't be able to paste the results for us to look at.

[StandingCow]

faktor and rob, no more arguing, kthx.

[Scraps]

http://images.filecloud.com/267159/lolo.JPG

[Degree:N]

A similar thing happened to me, and to fix it I did what has been said by faktor, but with slight differences:

1. Connect IDE HD and CD-ROM to the port using the same ribbon cable;
2. Put in windows CD and boot from CD;
3. Run windows setup;
4. Select "Repair existing" installation.

[FaKToR]

I wonder how this turned out.