I've got an old Mitac laptop which used to run just fine, but now i'm faced with an error when it is halfway through booting... WARNING - HARD DISK 1 FAILURE ...this is as far as it gets. I was wondering if anybody out there could tell me if this is fixable? and how? help would be muchly appreciated! thanks Greg.
Id start by doing a SMART check on the drive. This is pretty difficult though really seeing as you cant get into windows. When I had this problem I had to buy an adapter allowing me to plug it into my desktop. You could try the manufacturers tools too. What is the make and model of the drive? Most manufacturers tools are bootable floppies. Even if the tools for your drive aren't bootable they usally work in DOS so you can just make a DOS bootable floppy.
Thanks for the speedy reply! the hard drive is a Seagate ST9810AG. I have been considering buying one of those adapters... would come in pretty handy. I don't think it's a mechanical problem, i'm not hearing any clicking or 'speed-up-slow-downs' as i was with my other drive, so i'm abit puzzled. How exactly would i make a DOS bootable floppy? i mean, i can't get into the OS on my laptop.. is it worth trying to create a bootable floppy through this machine (Win XP) ? is this bootable floppy the same as a startup disk? I'm not new to DOS or anything, i'm just not good with it :x: haha. this laptop has no CD Drive, i can't get into my OS.. so i'm limited to what i can do with it.. at least i think so anyway. Thanks for your help
You can get the manufacturers tools from here... Seagate Technology SeaTools: Desktop Edition It doesnt seem to make reference to laptop drives so im assuming the tools cater for both desktop and laptops. You'll just have to try it and see. See if it helps at all. You get a really good idea about whats going on with SMART errors but you need windows. I'll have a look for a SMART check program for DOS. You might find its just a knackered partition or something. Where do you get your error? Just after POST? You can create DOS bootable floppies by right clicking the A drive in My computer and clicking on format. You just have to check the box "Create an MS-DOS startup disk" Then when you boot from it its simply a matter of typing in the name of the program you want to start. I think those seagate tools are bootable anyway so you wont need to create a floppy like this.
Cheers for the information, i'll give it a try as soon as i can find a spare floppy disk lying around. I'm getting this error just after the memory test as it starts up... it reads as follows: (memory test occours at startup as normal) ----> WARNING - HARD DISK 1 FAILURE ----> <CTRL-ALT-S> to enter Sys Config Utility, Press F1 to continue ----> (press F1) ----> Hard disk boot sector invalid insert valid disk (etc) i've tried various things up until now, like using a startup disk (but may be faulty for all i know) but i'll try the methods you mentioned thanks for the help!
