Windows 7 PC wont boot after being shut off

[mapleleafs89]

My computer froze so I was forced to shutdown by holding the button for 8 seconds.

When I started the computer I got a boot error, I thought great!! I have had a similar problem before so I figured partition table might be broken. I took the drive and plugged it into an enclosure to a Windows 7 PC and looked in disk utility, I could see the 240 GB partitions of 2 and 10 GB recovery partition, they didnt say NTFS and werent accessible through windows explorer.

Right now Im happy because this looks like it can be fixed easy.

In a few min the drive starts clicking, the drive cannot be seen in windows disk utility anymore. I tried loading up Active parition boot cd and the same thing occured..

I have no idea what to do now?

 

[Saltgrass]

Do you think the drive is old enough it might be failing?

If you look at the bios during startup, does the drive show normally?

You can download third party partition managers to look at the drive so you are not in Windows to see if it shows anything. Partition Wizard and G-Parted are two you can download bootable versions and burn to CD.

And what partitions do you have exactly? Two 240 G and one 10 G? Since the Windows 7 recovery is only 100 mb, where did the 10 G recovery partition come from?

 

[mapleleafs89]

10 GB recovery partition from desktop manufacturer, drive is 2 years old about; dont think its been used enough to fail.

I loaded Active Partition boot disc and it did not see the drive ( remember it is clicking ) but it would have seen it for the brief period when Windows was seeing it in the disc utility.

 

[Saltgrass]

The clicking by itself might indicate a mechanical failure, but possibly something else like a controller problem.

If the 10 G partition is a recovery partition, is it for Windows 7? I have no experience with such a partition, but is there any chance it is interferring with repairing Win 7 if it contains another OS?

Do you have a process given you by the manufacturer to restore your system using the Recovery Partition?

 

[mapleleafs89]

The clicking by itself might indicate a mechanical failure, but possibly something else like a controller problem.

If the 10 G partition is a recovery partition, is it for Windows 7? I have no experience with such a partition, but is there any chance it is interferring with repairing Win 7 if it contains another OS?

Do you have a process given you by the manufacturer to restore your system using the Recovery Partition?

No i dont think its interferring, at this point I would be happy to format the entire drive but thats not even possible at this point.

There is no process, no.

 

[Super Sarge]

Clicking in a HD is not good, it usually is callled the click of death. Try putting in freezer for awahile then mounting in you pc enclouser so you can possibly recover your dat from it. Otherwise it sounds like it has died.

 

[mapleleafs89]

would a company specialized to recover data be able to do something

 

[Trouble]

Data recovery services such as Link Removed could probably do you some good. But it's important to note that some of these services can be quite expensive especially in instances of mechanical failure where they have to disassemble your drive and remount the platters on a seperate spindle and heads in one of their clean rooms, so make sure you get a written and signed quote as to the costs and make sure that they understand that they are not to exceed that amount without previous written consent from you. And make sure that they understand what in particular you are interested in recovering. Data files, docs, music, pictures, email, etc., because they are probably going to charge by either the size of the drive or the per-meg amount of files recovered. So make sure you understand all terms and conditions in advance.

 

[ITSS 8]

Hi, I got the same problem with my 3.5 Sea-gate HD. I download the sea-gate tools and try to diagnose the booting problem, no success. So I put the hd to the Freezer for one day. The next day I try again and it works for a while. No clicking, I got the time to transfer all my data. The tools I download were helpful.