How can I tell if a computer's hard drive is physically damaged?

Question

I am having boot problems with XP and several Recover command prompts are turning up bad results:

FIXMBR - " . . . The disk may be damaged"
FIXBOOT - "The boot sector cannot be fixed"
CHKDSK - "The specified drive is not valid, or there is no disk in the drive."

Also, I heard the hard drive clicking/crunching when I ran FIXBOOT.

So is my hard drive physically shot? How can I tell for certain?


P.S. - Luckily I had recently placed all of my valuable data on an external hard drive, so data recovery is not an issue for me.

Answer 1

Find out the manufacturer and model of the drive. Then go out to the manufacturer's site. Look for a diagnostic utility that's usually a free download. Run a full test of the drive to be sure.

You can also try the drive in another PC as a slave, then run Windows scandisk on it, but the diagnostic utility is the most thorough.

Answer 2

fnky has a really good idea. If all fails, however, try using that drive as a slave until you recover your data to a new drive. While the diagnostic software may fix it for you, sounds like only the boot sector might be damaged which would not necessarily affect the data stored thereon.

Answer 3

hi definite. There are companies that can do attempt to get well documents from annoying Drives that don't boot the two using defective/broken boot sectors and/or bodily broken force. shop around and examine what the words are for the restoration. they do no longer assure the recovered documents. If the annoying force is corrupt, areas of the documents may be lacking/incomplete. stable good fortune

Answer 4

I can give you a link that deals with hard drive problems.
Some drive problems can be easily fixed by yourself using easily available tools. I found the info at http://fixit.in useful. Try this site, if you can get what is required

Answer 5

If when you turn on your PC and you hear a continuous beeping or other strange noise from the HDD usually indicates that it has been physically corrupted otherwise i suggest you get another HDD and install windows on it then run the old HDD as a slave and check if you can access it, if this doesnt work then the old HDD is dead

Hope this helps you :)

Answer 6

It doesn't have to be physically damaged to be saying that. It could just have gone bad. If you look at it and there's no dents that you see and if you shake it and hear nothing, then you are good. If you hear something when shaking it, then that's probably a problem.

If you can't get the recovery disc to boot up, then you are probably SOL.

Answer 7

if it can still be detected in the BIOS, you can go to the manufaturer's webpage and download utilities to check/fix your drive. I'd say the system area (Partition/Boot Record has bad sector)

Answer 8

I think the results you are getting are enough proof to let you rest the hard drive

Answer 9

if it makes a ticking or clicking noise, then it is physically damaged