HD S.M.A.R.T. Status Bad - Anyway to Recover?

I had the BSOD pop up the other day - did the XP recovery console chkdsk /r and things worked fine. Got up this morning to the BSOD again. This time though, when I run the chkdsk it stops at various % saying "volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems."

When I try to run Windows I get "PRI Master Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T. Status Bad, Backup and Replace" press F1 to continue. When I press F1 the startup screen scrolls but Windows never opens up and eventually shuts down due to a "fatal error".

I understand the SMART feature is telling me the HD is getting ready to fail (or already has?) The 8 year oldHD is a 60GB/WB 7200R EIDE WD600BB.

Can I install a slave HD, load XP on to it and recover the data from the original HD? I know, shame on me for not backing up the tons of family photos and other data, but I'm pretty desperate to salvage all I can it if at all possible.....

Thanks for any advice....

Oh, this is the rest of the system..... I did upgrade the RAM to 1gb last fall.....

Processors - AMD Athlon Thunderbird, XP, MP
AMD ATHLON XP 2000+/266 FSB PROCESSOR CPU - RETAIL BOX 2000+/ 1.67GHz, BOX2000DMT3C. 3 Years Warranty. The AMD Athlon XP processor with QuantiSpeed architecture powers the next generation in computing platforms, delivering extra performance for cutting-edge applications and an extra-ordinary computing experience.world's highest overall performing PC processor.
Specifications:
CPU: 1.67 GHz
Type: 2000 XP
Cache: 256K
BUS: 266MHz
Socket A (PGA) Retail(Box with Heatsink and Fan)

Motherboards - AMD
SHUTTLE AK31A AMD K7 VIA APOLLO KT266A DDR SOCKET A ATX MOTHERBOARD - RETAIL New Ver.. Support XP 2000+. VIA VT8366A/VT8233 Chipset. Supports AMD K7 Athlon/Duron FSB 200/266 Processors. Four 184 Pin Up to 4GB DDR SDRAM DIMM. Onboard AC97 Audio 1 4XAGP, 6XPCI, 1XCNR. Supports ATA 33/66/100 MB/s IDE Interface.
Tech Support Contact: service@shuttlegroup.com N82E16813150002

Memory - PC (DDR)
Crucial Micron 512MB 64x64 PC2100 DDR RAM, 184-Pin, CL=2.5-Unbuffered 2.5V, 6-Layers CT6464Z265 Requires DDR supported Motherboard - Lifetime Warranty.

Can I install a slave HD, load XP on to it and recover the data from the original HD?

You may well be able to do this, or an equivalent procedure is to fit the failing drive into another computer, or access it by means of a USB HDD adapter.

How successful you will be is governed by what degree of failure has already occurred. Windows could be failing to start because some essential Windows files are damaged, and other files like your pictures could be fine, and copy across without problems. But if the file system itself is damaged, another computer may not be able to read the drive, or large numbers of files may be corrupted or inaccessible.

You can only try, but I would say don't run that drive again until you're ready to try to copy the files you hope to save.

OK, I put in a new 500GB WD Caviar Blue hard drive. I have it as the master, the old drive is now the slave. Loaded XP on to the new drive and things seem fine.

The new drive is "G:" apparently and the computer sees both HDDs plus it identified local disks "C:" and "D:" which were the old partitions. When I try to access either C: or D: it says they are not formatted and do I wish to format? I'm assuming I should be able to read the old drive as is if it's possible.

Am I missing something here? Do I need to go about this differently?

I appreciate any and all help!

I should add I went to disk management and it says both C: and D: are active and healthy.....

Thanks

If your file table is corrupted on the problem hard drive, it will not be recognized by windows and windows will want it formatted.
I think that I would try to put the old drive back in as master and then use a ubuntu or knoppix boot disk and see if it can be accessed that way and back up your data on another medium

If you do get your data backed up, then your can also try using test disk to make a repair of the disk
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

you may or may not get the drive to ever boot again but anythings worth a try

Edited by Joe C, 09 July 2010 - 02:30 PM.

Thanks joe - I have to show my ignorance and say that I don't know what a "ubuntu or knoppix boot disk" is....

Please elaborate if you don't mind!

Thanks

Download knoppix live cd
http://www.knoppix.net/get.php
tutorial
http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/
or
a ubuntu live cd
http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download
tutorial
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vis...ndows-computer/
Then set your bios to boot the optical drive as the first boot device, once in knoppix/Ubuntu you can mount your suspect hard drive and copy your data from it to another medium. There's no guarantee if the hard drive disk is damaged this will work

Installing the OS onto the new drive with both drives already in the system has made it a bit confusing, but never mind. Now that you have an operating Windows installation, one approach would be to install TestDisk as Joe C suggested, and see if it can repair the file system on the old drive, making it accessible to the fresh Windows. That would be less complex than making the Linux recovery disc, but it could be safer to try the recovery disc first. It's always a bit of a toss-up which path offers the best chance of success with drive recovery.

You can easily loose everything on the drive using test disk if you are not very careful. That was the reason I had for backing up the data and even if the drive is accessible (highly possible it's might not be), Krooz can try to get his data off the drive even if test disk will not work

Edited by Joe C, 09 July 2010 - 11:03 PM.

Thanks gents. Just an update - my son set me with up EaseUS Professional and it recovered probably a good 90% of jpg, doc, xls etc. I bought a 1T WD external hard drive and backed the recovered folders on to it. My Windows XP is having some issues recognizing the SmartWare VCD so I just did the ole drag and drop to save the folders. Put in a new hi-speed USB 2.0 card but apparently my motherboard is too old(?) as it says I'm hooking up to a slow connection so that was a waste I guess.

Might be time to bite the bullet and get a new board and processor etc.....

Plain old copy is the best way really. It might be a good thing not to have ended up with the SmartWare, I've seen many people on message boards warning that they lost things on their WD external drive because the backup didn't work the way they thought it would and things weren't actually copied across.

The USB 2.0 card not running high-speed may indicate it uses a chip that XP doesn't have native drivers for, and an XP driver may be available for download on the card or chip manufacturers website.

Glad to hear everything worked out for you

Put in a new hi-speed USB 2.0 card but apparently my motherboard is too old(?) as it says I'm hooking up to a slow connection so that was a waste I guess.
Might be time to bite the bullet and get a new board and processor etc.....

If you are trying to use a USB port other than one that is directly soldered to the motherboard, you will get this wanring because the wiring sometimes used to front panel USB ports bottle-necks
the data flow, if you are using a front panel USB port, try using the ones on the computers back panel instead, which are directly connected to the motherboard.

Bruce.

What I put in is a Dynex 2 Port USB 2.0 PCI Card (DX 2P2C) - plug and play. I tried to download a driver but to no avail, still says "non-Hi Speed USB Hub". Don't know what's up with it. Takes forever to transfer data to the external drive.....

When you say you tried to download a driver but to no avail, were you able to download the correct driver? Did it install?

http://www.dynexproducts.com/products/computers/DX-2P2C.html

It could be that this card is a bit flakey supporting Plug&Play beyond XP SP1. People have reviewed it as working fine, but others I find saying they couldn't get it to work properly in SP2 but it did with SP1.