Alright so i've got a laptop that when i turned it on went straight to tell me there was a SMART drive failure, windows starts to boot up and then says that \windows\system\config or something is corrupt. I tried to run windows xp cd to reinstall and it just hangs and does nothing. Does anybody have any ideas or suggestions?


ALSO

I just got windows xp cd to boot up and it wont even let me try to repair the drive it says it has to format it. Basically i just have some pictures on there that i want to get off....anybody have any ideas about how i could do that?

Thanks!

Hello,

It looks like your registry has damaged itself. you might be able to fix it. http://support.microsoft.com/?id=307545 will show you how to repair the damage.

Hope this helps

That SMART drive failure error means that your hard drive has failed.

The other symptoms you are describing certainly relate to a failed, or failing, HD.

I cant even get into the repair part on the windows CD. Yikes! Is there any kind of like usb hookup that you can plug a laptop hard drive into?

Thanks!

It sounds like your hdd has failed, this usually means that it no longer spins up. There is one last gasp technique you can try, take you hdd and double zip lock bag it and place it in your freezer for about fifteen to twenty minutes and reinstall it. This contracts the material of the discs and may allow you a little time to retrieve some information. This won't normally last very long, so you need to know what you want to go after and have everything mentally lined up in the order you will go after it and what you will transfer it to, like DVD or CD.

Hopefully you have been diligent in you practice of backing up your important files to an alternate media.

The more that you access the drive, the more likely it is to fail completely.

You can try this free tool: http://www.pcinspector.de or this one: http://www.undelete-plus.com/help/4_instalation.html

If you try the freezer trick, make sure:
1) that you get as much air out of the bag as possible.
2) try it on the driest day possible
3) do it quickly because you'll probably only have one chance at it.