Windows Vista Windows Vista Install

[Henry Wong]

I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 PP29L running Windows Vista. The system freezes while booting from the HDD. During a boot into safe mode the system locks up at

Loaded: \Windows\system 32\drivers\crcdisk.sys

I have been trying to boot from a Windows Vista install disk, but it freezes as well. It will go through all of the progress bars sections but stops responding when the Windows install software is suppose to be starting. I am a little at a loss on what to do. I know I could do something to fix it if I could get it running. Though its the getting it running that is the problem. Any one have any suggestions?

 

[nmsuk]

This is only an educated guess but could you run seatools or equivalent software on the drive. I'm thinking maybe the hdd is on it's way out.

 

[Henry Wong]

I remembered I have Hire's BootCD 15.2 with me. I booted with that and in the DOS Programs under Hard Disk Tools I found and used the program Hard Disk Sentinel 1.00.5 I have included a screenshot for your reference. What do you think, proof of a bad HDD?

 

[nmsuk]

It's not healthy thats for sure, would you mind doing the surface test which will take several hours to complete Is really the only way to see how bad the drive is.

 

[Henry Wong]

Okay, I just started VIVA. I will put an update on when it is done.

 

[nmsuk]

Okay, I just started VIVA. I will put an update on when it is done.

Thank you

 

[Henry Wong]

I let it run for a few hours. I forgot to get a screenshot. I don't think it was necessary though. With the 488KK sections 200K came up bad. That wasn't even a full scan. So yea, I would say that the drive is going bad. That kinda sucks. I guess I will start by getting a new drive and trying a image over to the new drive. Worse comes to worse that doesn't work and I have to manually pull off the wanted data and reinstall the software.

 

[nmsuk]

As there are errors I'm not sure I'd want to image the disk. I'd reinstall windows on the new drive and then attempt to save any files on the old one.

 

[RichM]

nmsuk is spot on where there is known corruption and bad sectors cloning the drive will not do much for you
and will likely not complete anyway. It is time for clean install. The time for cloning was before all this.

 

[Henry Wong]

I have had success with cloning like this before. Never hurts to try. Especially since it is being borrowed from someone else and I'm attempting to get my best-friend out of hot water over it lOl. Worse comes to worse, we will have to do a fresh install anyway. All it will do is waste some time.

 

[Shado381]

For HDD problems like this, I would recommend SpinRite (paid product) to see if it could help recover the bad sectors. It worked wonders for 2 of my drives that were almost dead.

 

[RichM]

You could try it but even if it didn't work the clone would have the files and data you would need anyway.
"Spin-Rite" or "Hard Drive Regenerator" have occasionally pulled a rabbit out of the hat for me also and might also be worth a try.

 

[Henry Wong]

Hmmm. Thanks for the suggestions. I'll look them up and see if they help.