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[nomoment]

So here's the deal. Yesterday, my computer's hard drive starts cackling, and decides to reboot on it's own. It has problems starting up, and when it finally does successfully go up, Windows XP does some sort of C: Drive repair, where it analyzes all of the existing data, and allocates all of the free space.

Now, here's the problem. When my computer finally booted up, all of the stuff that I had on my desktop, and in the My Documents folders were gone. The weird thing is though, they should STILL be there, because the amount of free space on my hard drive never changed (from before and after the crash). So in other words, there's about 4-5 gigs of stuff in my computer that I can't find. I've tried system restore, and tried looking for the stuff manually, but can't find a damn thing. In addition to this, a bunch of my programs disappeared, including iTunes. Fuck.

My question is, what can I do here? The data must still be somewhere in the computer, because the free space in my C: never changed. WTF is going on?

Just to note, upon start-up, my PC scans my HD, Mouse, Keyboard, and USB ports, and forces me to press "F1" before allowing me to resume. This never happened before. Anyway I can get rid of it?

Thanks in advance, guys.

 

[nomoment]

Anybody?

 

[Ecrofirt]

Looks like they're more fond of my XP thread.

 

[nomoment]

Looks like they're more fond of my XP thread.

 

[alejob]

Sounds like part of your harddrive is bad and you lost all data there. But I don't want scare you, I really don't know.

 

[nomoment]

Sounds like part of your harddrive is bad and you lost all data there. But I don't want scare you, I really don't know.

I think that is definitely the case.

The thing is, my hard disk still continues to crash and make that cackling noise. After every few hours, my computer reboots itself and stalls at a black screen stating that my "hard disk has failed," or something like that.

Is there anyway to fix this? I've tried using XP's disk check to no luck...

 

[alejob]

From what I've been told, if a hard drive starts making a clacking noise then you better save everything somewhere else because its about to die.

 

[fart]

i don't really want to help you because you like superheros too much

 

[jenov4]

If you have access to another PC, I suggest you plug in your HD there and copy all the files over before you lose any more files.

By Default, your favorites/desktop/documents are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\Username... I suggest you start looking in there.

If you don't have access to another PC, get another HD asap and reinstall your OS and do the same.

 

[Sledn]

Heh, I've have many MANY problems with XP so I can sympathize with you.

The first place I would start would be by going into the recovery console by way of the installation disk. If you can't find your stuff there then you have a crappy hard drive. Odds are is that your stuff is still there but rather the address telling the computer where it is on the hard drive is corrupt.

If you do end up having a bad HD, it would be best to buy a new hard drive soon so you can transfer old data and don't lose more. From my experience, once HD's start to die off, they do so rather rapidly.

 

[nomoment]

Thanks guys.

Well, I've already lost all of my most pertinent information, including various university research papers I've been working on. Luckily, I had a few of them backed up on disk.

My HD doesn't make the cackling noise all the time, usually on and off after my computer's been on for a few hours. After that, my computer reboots itself.

All of the stuff in my documents (everything in Documents and Settings/User, etc.) has been completely wiped out, along with everything on my desktop.

Is the only option to physically replace the HD? No software solutions?

Weird thing is, this noises only started yesterday.

 

[Sledn]

I would suggest just getting a new HD. There are places you can take it and I'm sure they could recover your stuff but that is usually really REALLY expensive and I doubt you wanna spend that kinda money.

 

[nomoment]

I would suggest just getting a new HD. There are places you can take it and I'm sure they could recover your stuff but that is usually really REALLY expensive and I doubt you wanna spend that kinda money.

Yeah, my local computer shop charges insane hourly rates for that. It doesn't really matter anymore anyway, since all of my most important documents were wiped out.

Well, thanks for the help, guys. Off to get a new HD in the next few days, then.