On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 7:49 PM, Tim <[email protected]> wrote: >> If that produces no solution, then I would boot to a rescue CD, and >> then run fsck on the hard disk if I could at least get the rescue CD to >> see it. > > Actually, I would recommend against running fsck on a disk suspected > of hardware failure until after you've recovered your data. You're > just asking to damage more data by writing to the disk. I would first > try to recover your important files using something like the > sleuthkit/autopsy. There are boot disks which include these, such as > Helix and FCCU. > > Once you've safely recovered any files you can, you can always try to > run the fsck if you think the drive isn't actually dying.
Thx for the advice, John & Tim & etc. Turns out too much came up yesterday for me even to deal with it ... maybe later today. I'm gonna have to swing by Free Geek to pick up an Ubuntu install disc before I can really do anything with a replacement hard drive, anyway. Funnily enough, though, the video Tony recommended led me to the same video on YouTube, which then led me to a one-minute video from user "MushiYoshi" that documents almost exactly what it sounds like is happening with my machine, right down to the clicks and the "Bios does not be installed!" screen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_rjspXC23c Amazing what you can find on YouTube these days ... I never would've thought of looking there for insight into this problem, though in the past I have seen some good Linux/BSD how-to videos there. FYI, I don't actually need to recover any of the data from the disc. It's all backed up. My data is backed up, that is -- the OS/system data is not, hence the need for an install disc. Michael _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
