t500 has read verification error but BIOS detects HDD

[rvmccarty]

Hi,

I have a t500 model 2242, with 2.2 cpu and 2g's of RAM. It has Vista Home Edition. I've been having intermittent problems with it where it slows considerably and usually freezes. Sometime I can reboot and it works. Sometimes I have to run the ckdsk utility to get it to function again normally. Sometimes it brings up the startup repair tool. Once that has completed it has functioned again, except for yesterday. It ran the startup repair tool 24 hours. It didn't cycle and reboot, just remained on startup repair cycle as if it were hung there. So, I turned everything off and restarted it. I entered the BIOS and did a HDD diagnostic which seemed to never finish but gave me this error: error 0000 - read verification error. Then I checked the hardware. The BIOS sees the Hitachi HDD. The BIOS is outdated as it running version 2.16. I exited the BIOS and the computer gave me option to start normally or run startup repair again. I ran the startup repair tool again but it seems hung again.

I noticed most of the time when it was slow, it was not using much of the CPU. When it did use alot of the CPU, it was when I would open new apps. I would think that is the normal response for a CPU.

Before the system crashed, it was extremely slow. I would type 2 words of an email and wait 5-20 minutes for it to recover. It would take an extremely long time to do anything.

My hubby thinks my t500 has a virus.

My backups are quite old as I ran out of space on my drive. Stupid on my part as I knew I was having problems. Lesson learned! My laptop is under warranty - thank heavens!

I was doing some web development and I really need my files.

I found a thread here with a very similar situation. It was noted the HDD would need to be replaced. I found another thread concerning a recommendation to run WD Data Lifeguard diagnostic. http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... on#p533988

A few questions arise. Sorry if these questions seem ridiculous. I'm a novice to these types of problems.

- Does it seem my t500 has a virus that's preventing it from booting?

- As my BIOS can detect my Hatachi HDD, does that mean the HDD is good and salvageable?

- Can I use a WD utility on a Hatachi HDD?

- If so, does the WD Data Lifeguard tool need to be downloaded and executed on a another Vista machine? We have 1 Win 7 & 2 XP machines. The problem is with my Vista system.

Any help is greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[Harryc]

You may be able to recover files if you attach the hard drive to another machine using an external cable or a USB enclosure. For Hitachi drives, it is best to run the Hitachi Drive Fitness test.
http://www.hitachigst.com/support/downloads/

[sponka]

Your disk is dying (probably lots of bad sectors) and the more you use it more corrupted it gets, less data will be salvaged.

It "hangs" at some points -- it's a good indicator you have lots of bad sectors and some data will be lost and/or corrupted (disk is retrying to read data, each sector for 30 seconds by default).

Do as Harryc suggest -- take disk out of laptop and connect to another computer - it has standard SATA power and data connector (same as desktop machines) so this should not be the problem. This way you won't boot from your disk and will be mounted as secondary, hopefully your files will be readable and you can copy them to another disk (external, etc.). You *must* save your data first before using any of mentioned utilities -- they will "low level format" entire disk as this is the only way when dealing with bad sectors. Since you will clam warranty there is no point doing this.

If disk won't be readable in another computer (recognized, but will say it's unformatted) than you need something like this: http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/

If you have no knowledge how to do this find a decent repair store and ask them for help. Buy new external disk for saved data as your disk will be replaced under warranty.

Good luck!

[rvmccarty]

Thank you Harryc and Sponka! That was very helpful information!

We tried Hitachi Drive Fit Test (DFT) but unfortunately that was not successful. We tried every option and each one failed.

A note to those using DFT*.iso who may not know: when burning the .iso file to a CD, you can't just make a data CD. You need to burn a bootable ROM CD.

I was able to copy my important files to an external drive using ThinkVantage Rescue & Recovery (F11). I then did a "quick recovery" which repaired enough of the problem to allow me to boot to the desktop. I opened 2 apps. The unit became hot and hung again. Fed up, I just turned it off. I had begun this process before I saw Sponka's post.

Earlier in the day, I had called Lenovo support to give them my error code. Without question, the tech ordered a replacement HDD and recovery disks. I was quite happy as I expected the support tech to argue with me, which had been the case a few years back.

Anyhow, the items are en route and I'm happy. Thanks again for all of your help!