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How To Repair Hard Drive Problems
by Otis Cooper
Since computer users are human, the user can be the primary cause of computer
failure. And we operators of our computers are in most cases but that, we
operate the computer but know very little concerning software and hardware
components and peripherals.
Since this is the case, you should ASSUME NOTHING when diagnosing any computer
problem. We diagnosed a new PC with a video display problem. After briefly
looking at the video card it took a while to see that the video card was not
pushed into the adapter slot completely.
Even though I looked at the card, I failed to check it thoroughly. This cause me
to spend more time on troubleshooting that was not needed. The thought of a hard
drive failure strikes terror in the heart of every computer user.
This is because a hard drive failure may lead to invaluable data loss. Here are
the most common procedures you should perform when you experience hard drive failure.
General Hard Drive Troubleshooting
The hard drive can display problems such as "retry, abort, ignore" or "cannot
read sectors" while operating. This is an indication that there may be bad or
unreadable spots on the drive. Reformatting and reinstalling the operating
system can normally correct this problem. This will cause you to loose all data
on your drive so it is important to always have a good backup of your files daily.
There are good utilities you can purchase that can repair hard drive problems
without destroying data. The utility Spinrite is a good utility and only cost
$200.00 which is a good price if you want to avoid the hassle of reformatting
the drive and restoring the operating system. Here are some general hard drive
problems you should start from and we'll be more specific later.
Use Operating System Utilities
First you may be able to correct those bad spots and errors from your hard drive
by performing those PC maintenance in the operating system. Windows has Disk
Defragment and you should run Disk Defragment after running Scandisk since
Scandisk will need to fix any problems it finds. After scanning the drive and
defraging the files, run Disk Cleanup to ensure all junk files have been delete.
Check Drive cables and connections
If there is no indication that the drive is receiving power (you don't hear that
familiar clicking noise or the drive light is no working) check the four wire
connector coming from the power supply.
If the connection is secure, you can remove the power supply connector and do
two things. You can check to see if there is voltage with a multimeter. But its
much faster to connect another four wire connector to the drive to see if the
drive works. There are normally extra connectors from the power supply or you
can use the connection to the cdrom drive to test for voltage from the power supply.
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