T30: Boot sector issue. Hard drive worn out?

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uberT · #1 Post by **uberT** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 7:29 am

My T30 has provided excellent service for the past 5.5 years. I came home last night and the machine would not start to Windows XP. I was getting a warning about "boot sector has changed, you may have a virus".

We run Ultimaco WDE (whole disc encryption) and I had an issue last week with it. I came home (machine always moves from office to home with me) and the machine would not accept my password. My technology group helped me get that reset. (I believe Ultimaco has its fingers in the boot sector.)

At this moment, I can complete the log in process and get by Ultimaco, but everytime it's taking me to IBM Rescue and Restore 5.7 -- no other options are offered. Once I get in to R&R, I can run PC Doctor and I ran some of the tests. All seem to be OK apart from one of the hard drive tests. I think there are about 8 different test it can perform. One of them takes a very long time, perhaps an hour. At the end of that test (LINEAR VERIFY) I get a FAILED status message. The hard drive is certainly still running. I guess I don't have any idea whether this is a serious failure or something they might be able to correct without a re-format. Is this hard drive done?

Thanks for any suggestions.

ajkula66 · #2 Post by **ajkula66** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:06 am

Your HDD seems to be very ill...try to save whatever you need to from it, and get a new drive.

uberT · #3 Post by **uberT** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 8:24 am

Thanks. I backed up about 10 days ago and can restore from that. Based upon discussions I'll have this morning, I'll decide whether to move forward and get a fresh T61 WINXP today.

uberT · #4 Post by **uberT** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 10:38 am

I've chatted with the IT people and they say it's likely a bad HD. No suggestions offered apart from "think about a new machine".

They did mention something called bartPE which is supposed to be able to recover data from a bad HD. Anybody familiar with this one?

Thx.

#5 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:02 am

You can get BartPE here: http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
It's like a Swiss army knife, does loads of everything. It's also highly customizable and you can include your own selection of programs.
It will boot from that CD and then give you access to your HD, amongst others.
Some other utilities to recover data:
http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_re ... language=1
http://www.file-recovery.net/

uberT · #6 Post by **uberT** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 11:14 am

Thanks, RBS. I'll have a look at it. Is it the "best" one to work with? Somewhat intuitive, if I may?

The urgency around all of this has gone from high to low. I just found out that they can't get me a replacement T61 (T7500, 2.2GHz, 800MHz, Dual Core, 120GB HD, 2GB RAM) for about two weeks...

agarza · #7 Post by **agarza** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 12:40 am

You can use the Hitachi DFT to erase both disk and boot sector on your drive so that it becomes 100% usable. The error on the boot sector makes impossible to boot Windows, I also had that kind of error, not a single format will fix it, you have to completely 'wipe' the drive. I also had a T30 for like 3+ years. Replaced with a new T42p.

uberT · #8 Post by **uberT** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:05 am

xtr, thanks for your reply. I'm not certain there's much value in repairing a drive that has many hours on it. This machine has been in use for about 5.5 years, traveled many miles and provided excellent service.

I have my sights set on a 7200 rpm replacement, probably 60GB size. They're quite inexpensive.

#9 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 8:16 am

If you have a PC and a 2.5"-to-3.5" adapter, or a 2.5" USB-enclosure, take the HD out and connect it to your PC to recover data.
You may be lucky and have straight access to your data.
The other programs, esp. the PCInspector first, could then be tried to recover stuff, if the direct method is not working.
You have to make your own BartPE CD, based on the download and utils you want for it. It is not quite that easy to do, but read the instructions carefully and you should be up and running.

Another method I forgot about: make the life-CD from the downloaded Knoppix here:
http://www.knoppix.org/
Using that in your TP, you can boot from it and give you access to your data, if the HD can still be read (but won't boot).

uberT · #10 Post by **uberT** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:39 am

RBS, thanks again. I don't have any of the components you mention and don't want to go to any heroic efforts to recover the data - - my most recent backup isn't that old.

I'm wondering if I'll be able to boot from CD because of the whole disc encryption on the machine. I have a bootable CD or two at home - - I guess that's e-z enough to check.

What's the scope of the project to get a new HD up and running? Is it a matter of plugging in the new one and using my OE IBM recovery discs or is it far more complicated?

Thx.

edit: the hard drive still boots, as far as I can tell. The initial few seconds of the start-up process is routine. It just never makes it to the point where Win XPP starts and moves to R&R 5.7.

#11 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 1:46 pm

I think Utimaco is going to be your 'undoing'. There is no point copying your current HD to a new one (using Acronis TrueImage), because of the boot-issue you have, offering you only R&R. That would be identical on the new HD.
Best to use your last good backup and restore it onto the new HD.
Which software do you plan to use for that?

uberT · #12 Post by **uberT** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:17 pm

I'm moving to a new machine so all backed up data will go there. (We use NTI Backup Now!) My company has done a good job of getting people up and running again when a failure occurs or somebody transitions to a new machine. They have a decent restoration process....assuming the user performed routine back ups.

I'm just going to get a new HD for the old machine and use it as a spare. I'm not going to make any efforts to restore the data to the old T30. It will no longer be used by my me. I just want to get it back to a functional state so somebody else can use it. It's a perfectly good machine and I'm not of the mentality to throw it away, as some would.

I will make some attempt to grab a database from the failed HD...possibly some photographs from years past that I'd hate to lose, too. The failed HD will be destroyed after we attempt to recover the database.

uberT · #13 Post by **uberT** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:20 pm

One of our support groups (India) is supposed to be preparing me a special disc (bartPE + some other stuff) that can be used in conjunction with Ultimaco. I guess they've had some success with it in the past. I just have to wait for it to arrive.

Due to the sensitive nature of the business I am in, and data contained on our machines, the corporation must have game plans for recovering data in cases like this, so I assume they have a technique that works. We'll see

#14 Post by **RealBlackStuff** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 3:57 pm

The old photos should be contained in (one of) your backup(s)...
Nice to hear you are not of the throw-it-away species.
There's life in that old (T30)dog yet!

The BartPE CD should do the trick.

uberT · #15 Post by **uberT** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 4:12 pm

RealBlackStuff wrote:The old photos should be contained in (one of) your backup(s)...

I'm hoping you're correct.

Yeah, the T30 is a great machine and was running like a champ 'til we hit this little bump in the road

I really didn't have any intentions of replacing it in the near future. The company likes folks to get a new machine every 18 months or so. I've stopped following that routine.

uberT · #16 Post by **uberT** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:18 pm

OK, I ran Memtest86 which is a bootable CD. No problems getting it to run

uberT · #17 Post by **uberT** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 4:22 pm

I've got bartPE up and running. Not sure what I'm supposed to see. When I look at the C drive all I can see are four folders I don't recognize:

IBMWORK
MFG
PCDR
RECOVERY

Nothing else shows on the C drive. I wonder if this is due to the encryption

Can anyone offer any clues on this?

Thx.

T30: Boot sector issue. Hard drive worn out?

T30: Boot sector issue. Hard drive worn out?

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