Jump to content

Hard disk fail

J G

By J G,
in Members General & Announcements

 Share Followers 0

Recommended Posts

J G

J G 927

Posted
Posted

Some of you will already know that I have had a HDD failure.

 

I have two HDD in my FSX PC: The C drive for the O/S and bits and bobs, and the D drive for FSX.

 

The D drive failed in mid flight.  FSX crashed, nothing new I thought. I tried to restart it and got an interesting message to the effect that FSX could not be found.  I opened "my computer" and lo and behold there was no D drive.

 

So its new drive time.....

 

This topic will relate my experiences in sorting out this mess. so as I progress you lot can learn from my mistakes (or should that be progress) and in the vague hope that it proves useful to some one else at a later date. Its going to be a bit like Bomb Disposal, If i cut the red wire and it goes bang, then you will know not to do that when it happens to you.

 

I went looking for an SSD, 250 GB was all I could get in the shops and anything over 500 MB was at silly prices.  I settled for a Hybrid drive. 2 TB and should be fairly quick, unless it turns out to be a Toyota Prius Drive.

 

So the plan is.....

 

Clone the C drive onto the new Hybrid drive.

Reformat the old C drive.

Try and recover the D drive to the reformatted C drive.

 

I am going to try this using freeware only, so wish me luck!

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
allardjd

allardjd 1,853

Posted
Posted
I went looking for an SSD, 250 MB was all I could get in the shops and anything over 500 MB was at silly prices.

 

 

That would be "GB", not "MB", right? 

 

Sorry to hear about the problem.  It happens to everyone sooner or later but that's cold comfort when it's you it's happening to today.  

 

Best of luck with the recovery.

 

John

Link to post
Share on other sites
britfrog

britfrog 180

Posted
Posted

a bit strange losing a drive like that usually they give plenty of warnings, before going tits up. double check the cables and connections in case the heat made them losse.

who is the hard drive made by? Hitachi?

Link to post
Share on other sites
J G

J G 927

Posted
  • Author
Posted

That would be "GB", not "MB", right? 

 

John

 

 

You are absolutely correct John, thanks.  Post edited. Serves me right for posting at midnight!

Link to post
Share on other sites
J G

J G 927

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Update on the Plan....

 

  • Clone the C drive onto the new Hybrid drive. The drive s a Seagate 2 TB SSHD drive and Seagate provides free software for cloning and other utilities as a download from their support website. I was going to use Clonezilla, a freeware linux based disk cloning tool, but I couldn't get it to work for me and it seemed sensible to use the drive manufactures tool in any event.
  • Mount the new SSHD in place of the C drive and reboot
  • If reboot is successful then reformat the old C drive.
  • Try and recover the D drive to to reformatted C drive.
Link to post
Share on other sites
J G

J G 927

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I have successfully cloned my C drive.The new drive is in and there is no difference apart from a speed change - better boot time.

 

Now I will attempt to format the old C drive and then recover the D drive. Things are going well so far....

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
J G

J G 927

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I have had some Issues with the old C drive. Formatting it with the Seagate tool has been a bit interesting.I managed to create a drive with two partitions; a small one and a very much larger one. The smaller one seemed to be locked up and i couldn't change anything about it. This included the drive letter (D).

 

This presented a big problem as the new hybrid drives pointed many things at the D drive. I realized that this partition was reserved for the MBR and so the tool protected it. I had also inserted the disk as disk 0. Disk 1 was the new drive with two partitions, again, one reserved for the MBR, but this one was not assigned a drive letter. Changing the new drive to disk 0 and the new ex-C drive to disk 1, I was able to remove the "D" designation from that drive , MBR and then the other partition to drive D.

 

The next job is to try to get the failing  "D" drive's data onto the newly formatted ex-"C" drive.

 

Fortunately hard disks generally fail gradually. This is the case with mine. I had managed to get it running for a while but sooner or later it would drop out. I attempted to clone the old D drive on to the new one, hopping it would last the time needed to complete the operation.

 

I was glad to find that it would - just..

 

So now the new drive was the "C" drive and the old "C" drive was the new " D" drive. Would it work. I will post later to let you know and, if it successful, list some lessons learned/tips for those of you who are forced into this course of action.

Link to post
Share on other sites
J G

J G 927

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Ok it is all in place and seems to be working well with one exception which I will come to in a minute.

 

When I first started FSX all the scenery and various other bits were rebuilt.  Not a problem but unexpected.

 

I use SimStarter which I find is a very useful tool to set my environment up for add-ons that hit my frame rates hard. When I start this program Microsoft .NET crashes.  I probably need to reinstall it if I can I will reinstall SimStarter first though.

 

A couple of lessons learned:

 

  1. Check the documentation with your new drive. you may find you have free access to some very useful tools.
  2. If your HDD starts to behave erratically, don't wait for a catastrophic failure before you address the problem.  Replace it while you can still access your data.

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to post
Share on other sites
MyPC8MyBrain

MyPC8MyBrain 273

Posted
Posted

John you're probably have a corrupted library or so

i recommend after this particular overhaul

to run the following command in admin command prompt

sfc /scannow
and let her run through

this command verifies all system files against their manifest

and makes sure they are in tack and in their original format

if any file is found faulty; the system will automatically replaced it

with a fresh copy it reserved upon initial install

(the built-in tool only examine core system files; not third party)

Link to post
Share on other sites
J G

J G 927

Posted
  • Author
Posted

The PC is back up and running properly now, I have just got to sort out my panels and all will be complete.

There has been a slight delay in completing this repair job as it was interrupted by my 30th wedding anniversary!

 

JG

  • Like 1
Link to post
Share on other sites
J G

J G 927

Posted
  • Author
Posted

very happy to learn your back on your feet with the PC issue

just in time to get lost again in P3D v2.3 pool :thum:

I havnt dipped my toe into P3D yet, I can't justify the cost yet.

I have plenty of space for it now, perhaps a Christmas present!

Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 3 weeks later...

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share
Followers 0
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...