What is the problem with my HD with Win 2k?

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I am having a problem with one of the HDs on my server. I can usually boot it
up, but then at the login screen I get an error message saying UNKNOWN HARD
ERROR. The PC then either reboots itself or I get a black screen saying
PLEASE INSERT BOOT MEDIA.....

I am assuming it is a HD problem and I would like to install a new HD.
However, the software on that drive is very vital and I cannot afford to lose
any of it.

So, how can I copy all of those programs and settings to the new HD without
losing anything? And, please keep in mind that I cant even boot the PC into
windows half the time.

Thanks.
 
This article may help.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314474

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
|I am having a problem with one of the HDs on my server. I can usually boot
it
| up, but then at the login screen I get an error message saying UNKNOWN
HARD
| ERROR. The PC then either reboots itself or I get a black screen saying
| PLEASE INSERT BOOT MEDIA.....
|
| I am assuming it is a HD problem and I would like to install a new HD.
| However, the software on that drive is very vital and I cannot afford to
lose
| any of it.
|
| So, how can I copy all of those programs and settings to the new HD
without
| losing anything? And, please keep in mind that I cant even boot the PC
into
| windows half the time.
|
| Thanks.
 
Would this article also pertain to Windows 2000 server? that is what i am
running on my machine. My concern is that none of the drivers or hardware
have changed for over 3 months. Why would this all of a sudden happen?
 
1.) Yes
2.) The drive may have failed.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Would this article also pertain to Windows 2000 server? that is what i am
| running on my machine. My concern is that none of the drivers or hardware
| have changed for over 3 months. Why would this all of a sudden happen?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| "Dave Patrick" wrote:
|
| > This article may help.
| >
| > http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314474
| >
| > --
| > Regards,
| >
| > Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
| > Microsoft Certified Professional
| > Microsoft MVP [Windows]
| > http://www.microsoft.com/protect
| >
| > "WORLDe" wrote:
| > |I am having a problem with one of the HDs on my server. I can usually
boot
| > it
| > | up, but then at the login screen I get an error message saying UNKNOWN
| > HARD
| > | ERROR. The PC then either reboots itself or I get a black screen
saying
| > | PLEASE INSERT BOOT MEDIA.....
| > |
| > | I am assuming it is a HD problem and I would like to install a new HD.
| > | However, the software on that drive is very vital and I cannot afford
to
| > lose
| > | any of it.
| > |
| > | So, how can I copy all of those programs and settings to the new HD
| > without
| > | losing anything? And, please keep in mind that I cant even boot the PC
| > into
| > | windows half the time.
| > |
| > | Thanks.
| >
| >
| >
 
WORLDe said:
I am having a problem with one of the HDs on my server. I can usually boot it
up, but then at the login screen I get an error message saying UNKNOWN HARD
ERROR. The PC then either reboots itself or I get a black screen saying
PLEASE INSERT BOOT MEDIA.....

I am assuming it is a HD problem and I would like to install a new HD.
However, the software on that drive is very vital and I cannot afford to lose
any of it.

So, how can I copy all of those programs and settings to the new HD without
losing anything? And, please keep in mind that I cant even boot the PC into
windows half the time.
Click to expand...

If it's getting as far as the Windows login screen before the error, you
probably still have a chance of recovering the data from the drive. If this
is happening as soon as the machine starts booting up (before it even tries
to load Windows), you might be out of luck.

There are various tools available both online and in stores that can
help with data recovery. One way to get a bunch of free tools for this is
to download the "Ultimate Boot Disk".
 
If my drive fails, can I still make a backup of the HD image and transfer
that image onto a new HD so that I do not have to reinstall all of the
software??
 
The answer is noone knows for sure, but you can try.

In any event, best you not use that drive until you're ready to try
recovering what you can. Disk damage can proliferate rapidly across a
spinning platter as the seek arm moves.

If damage on the drive is localized to the area where your boot files
live, much of the rest of the file structures may be intact.

If you mount that drive as an extra drive in a bootable machine, you may
have a number of ways to recover whatever is readable, from plain old
vanilla copying to cloning or imaging.

It is extremely unlikely that you would ever damage a good hard drive by
copying scrambled stuff to it from a bad drive. But remember that if you
keep on using that bad drive you may kill any chance you now have of
recovering anything from it.
If my drive fails, can I still make a backup of the HD image and transfer
that image onto a new HD so that I do not have to reinstall all of the
software??




:

1.) Yes
2.) The drive may have failed.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Would this article also pertain to Windows 2000 server? that is what i am
| running on my machine. My concern is that none of the drivers or hardware
| have changed for over 3 months. Why would this all of a sudden happen?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| "Dave Patrick" wrote:
|
| > This article may help.
| >
| > http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314474
| >
| > --
| > Regards,
| >
| > Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
| > Microsoft Certified Professional
| > Microsoft MVP [Windows]
| > http://www.microsoft.com/protect
| >
| > "WORLDe" wrote:
| > |I am having a problem with one of the HDs on my server. I can usually
boot
| > it
| > | up, but then at the login screen I get an error message saying UNKNOWN
| > HARD
| > | ERROR. The PC then either reboots itself or I get a black screen
saying
| > | PLEASE INSERT BOOT MEDIA.....
| > |
| > | I am assuming it is a HD problem and I would like to install a new HD.
| > | However, the software on that drive is very vital and I cannot afford
to
| > lose
| > | any of it.
| > |
| > | So, how can I copy all of those programs and settings to the new HD
| > without
| > | losing anything? And, please keep in mind that I cant even boot the PC
| > into
| > | windows half the time.
| > |
| > | Thanks.
| >
| >
| >
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
WORLDe said:
If my drive fails, can I still make a backup of the HD image and transfer
that image onto a new HD so that I do not have to reinstall all of the
software??
Click to expand...

That depends on how it fails. If the BIOS can detect the drive and
mounts it's partitions as drive letters, there's a good chance of recovering
at least some of the data. If the BIOS does not mount the partitions as
drive letters, it may be more difficult to recover the data (unless the
partition table can be restored). If it fails completely and is not even
detected by the BIOS at startup, there will be no easy way to recover the
data. There are companies which specialize in data recovery who are likely
to be able to get the data back but the cost is astronomical.
 
I have decided to put my "failed" drive into a bootable machine to copy data.
What do you suggest i used to make a clone of the failed hard drive?
I believe the HD and its data are still intact because it will boot and i
can see the windows login screen. However, the bios doesn't normally detect
it.
So, i want to try making a clone of the failed drive and copying it to the
bootable drive in the same computer. How would i go about this??
 
I don't think I understand. Do you mean that when you still have the
drive in the original computer, the BIOS does not detect the drive but it
boots to the Windows login screen? I don't think it's possible to boot from
a drive which the BIOS can't detect so I expect that the BIOS is detecting
the drive. If this is true, you may only have corrupted files and the hard
drive might not have failed. Have you run any hard drive diagnostics on
this drive yet?

If data on the drive is corrupted, you probably don't want to clone it,
you probably want to copy the important files separately to another drive.

If the problem is corrupted files instead of a failed drive, you may be
able to fix it by doing a repair operation from the install disk. I'd
suggest running a good hard drive diagnostic and if the drive passes, boot
from the Windows setup disk, go through all of the prompts until after the
EULA and setup should detect the old installation and offer to repair it.
If this doesn't happen, bail out because the normal install will blow away
your old installation.
 
Ok, so, I put the bad HD in another good machine as the slave drive.
All of the contents shows up when i go into the drive under my computer.
I can see all of my files, programs, partitions, etc.

So, would it be correct to say that there is a problem with the boot sector
of this drive? If so, how would i fix this?

Is there a way to make an image of that drive and clone it to the good drive?
 
To test this try creating a boot disk. For the floppy to successfully boot
Windows 2000 the disk must contain the "NT" boot sector. Format a diskette
(on a Windows 2000 machine, not a DOS/Win9x, so the NT boot sector gets
written to the floppy), and copy Windows 2000 versions of ntldr,
ntdetect.com, and boot.ini to it. Edit the boot.ini to give it a correct ARC
path for the machine you wish to boot. Below is an example of boot.ini. The
default is to start the operating system located on the first partition of
the primary or first drive (drive0). Then drive0 partition 2 and so on.

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,2"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,1"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,2"

Another possibility is to try loading the controller driver also from
floppy. For the floppy to successfully boot Windows 2000 the disk must
contain the "NT" boot sector. Format a diskette (on a Windows 2000 machine,
not a DOS/Win9x, so the "NT" boot sector gets written to the floppy), then
copy ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini to it. Edit the boot.ini to give it a
correct ARC path for the machine you wish to boot.

In order for this to work you'll want to change the arc path in boot.ini
from multi syntax to scsi syntax to indicate that Windows 2000 will load a
boot device driver and use that driver to access the boot partition. Then
also copy the correct manufacturer scsi driver to the floppy but renamed to
ntbootdd.sys


Something like this below;

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows
[operating systems]
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,2"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,1"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,2"


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
<snip>
| So, would it be correct to say that there is a problem with the boot
sector
| of this drive? If so, how would i fix this?
<snip>
 
You could try running the recovery console and execute BOOTFIX (and
possibly MBRFIX as well). You can run the recovery console by booting from
the Windows setup CD and selecting Repair from the first prompt.
 
Just when i thought things were starting to fall into place......

Well, i put the "failing" HD in a new, similar PC. To my surprise, it boots
up, i get the windows 2000 login screen, and no UNKNOWN HARD ERROR.
It's detected by the bios, unlike the other machine.

So, at this point, i am really stuck. Does it sound like a bios issue on the
"old" machine? I swapped IDE cables, tried getting into the recovery console,
and still no luck. Could it be a motherboard issue?

Help is greatly appreciated. You guys have been a huge help!!
 
WORLDe said:
Just when i thought things were starting to fall into place......

Well, i put the "failing" HD in a new, similar PC. To my surprise, it boots
up, i get the windows 2000 login screen, and no UNKNOWN HARD ERROR.
It's detected by the bios, unlike the other machine.

So, at this point, i am really stuck. Does it sound like a bios issue on the
"old" machine? I swapped IDE cables, tried getting into the recovery console,
and still no luck. Could it be a motherboard issue?

Help is greatly appreciated. You guys have been a huge help!!
Click to expand...

It's starting to sound like a problem with the drive controller on the
motherboard.
 
Ok, now, sorry for being so technical illiterate, but, does this "bad drive
controller" on the motherboard mean that the motherboard needs to be replaced?
Or just the controller?
 
WORLDe said:
Ok, now, sorry for being so technical illiterate, but, does this "bad drive
controller" on the motherboard mean that the motherboard needs to be replaced?
Or just the controller?
Click to expand...

If it's the drive controller, you could either replace the motherboard
or add a PCI controller card and disable the motherboard controller.
 
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