The drive it'self may not be faulty - depending on what happened to it before it was passed to you, it may simply have had the data and partition information on it corrupted due to a fault with the motherboard, memory, controller, power supply in the original system.
Considering that the problems you have reported all indicate data is not accessible (including the 'partition table' as a set of data written to the drive) then the drive itself may be perfectly OK - you could try creating new partitions on the drive, (possibly putting it in a USB housing) and using it for data storage for a couple of months - use frequently, but not for anything important - and that means the temp folder used by applications to download, or build files Better not to have it connected as an IDE P-ATA drive alongside another drive that contains important data, as problems with a faulty drive can effect the other drive connected on the same cable, or controller chip-set. I had a 120Gb drive that was totally corrupted when the raid controller it was attached to went phut (The fan came off of the controller chip, and it overheated. that drive has run without problems for almost a year now as the primary download partition - and testing OS boot drive (Remove my normal system and data drives and boot that OS system for testing and addressing problems similar to the one you had with the drive passed to you. ) JimB ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Anno" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 6:48 PM Subject: Re: WinXP activation and HD problems > I tried several recovery programs, both free and evaluation versions. The > only program that would even see the drive as having anything on it was > Diskinternals. It was very slowly finding recoverable files, so I let it run > all night. When I checked in the morning there were a bunch of useless > windows files and a few folders, and (Oh Joy!) the Documents and Settings > folder! But alas, when I opened the folder it said "There are no recoverable > files in this folder." So I think I will up the chance that the drive is now > a paperweight to 99.9%. > > Jim > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "TedL" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Tuesday, August 29, 2006 9:31 PM > Subject: Re: WinXP activation and HD problems > > > > From your explanation, there is a 99.5% chance the drive is now a > > paperweight. > > -- > ---------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Is your picture included in the Official Win-Home List Members Profiles Page? > http://www.besteffort.com/winhome/Profiles.html > If not, write to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > -- ---------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Is your picture included in the Official Win-Home List Members Profiles Page? http://www.besteffort.com/winhome/Profiles.html If not, write to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
