Hard disks often report errors that signify a problem with the drive (or with reading or writing to it). But they can also offer some scary visible and auditory signs that tip you off to a hardware issue as opposed to something like a virus.
Some of the warning signs and symptoms of a dead or dying drive include
- Horrific or loud noises that involve brr-ing or buzzing, clicking, grinding, or scraping sounds
- Loud vibration (although this can also be caused by a drive that is not securely mounted in its drive bay)
- No drive light (If instead, the drive light remains on all the time, this is usually a sign of a reversed drive cable, which can fry the drive.)
- Smoke, sparks, or a strange odor coming from drive
- Drive not being detected by the BIOS (indicative of a dead drive if the drive was previously detected by the BIOS), which you can see (or rather, not see) by going into BIOS Setup
- All other drives respond with the PC turned on except for the suspect drive
- A drive that shows garbage, corruption, or confusion after an event like a serious power surge
- Repeated drive errors
- It takes two or three PC restarts to get the hard disk to respond when starting up the PC
- Water-marking (like dried water spots) on the exterior drive shell (This may indicate it’s been subjected to water, or the computer was operated while very cold and condensation formed.)
When Dead Isn’t Really Dead
Let’s start on a hopeful note by looking at the types of problems that can make it seem to you and to your system that a hard disk is having a problem that might lead you to think it’s dead or dying. Most of these problems can be resolved without replacing the drive, especially if you don’t do anything to exacerbate the damage.
Here are some of the issues you should examine as possible causes:
Hardware conflicts; Your hard disk is not listed in Device Manager, but your hard disk controller (the interface between your drive and the PC) is. If another device is using the same IRQ as the hard disk controller, you’re going to have a problem that behaves much like a dead hard disk, even though the drive is fine.
Corrupted or damaged drive-overlay software If there are problems with your drive-overlay software, you’ll probably see a message to this effect on the screen.
Corrupted or missing master boot record (MBR) A corrupted or missing MBR can usually be fixed by recreating the MBR. To do this in Windows 95/98/Me, reboot with a boot disk and type the following command at the command prompt: fdisk /mbr. In Windows XP, use the Recovery Console and the fixmbr command. However, don’t use either method if you’re using drive-overlay software.
File system or BIOS corruption from a computer virus or catastrophic event Check your system regularly for viruses using anti-virus software that’s updated for the most recently released viruses. For file system corruption, completely reformatting the hard disk may help. For BIOS corruption, you may need to apply a fresh BIOS update or contact the BIOS manufacturer for assistance.
Driver corruption Special drivers called bus-mastering drivers that work with your hard disk are installed as part of your PC setup. If these drivers become outdated and/or corrupted, it’s possible that the results could mimic a dead or dysfunctional drive. The best measure for this is proactive; use Windows Update to alert you to critical updates for this type of driver as well as for other drivers.
Drive diagnostics or drive-management software comes packed with a hard disk or can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s web site. Such diagnostics are designed for that particular drive. Look to see whether the problems you’re having are serious enough to replace the drive.
