[RESOLVED] Hard drive problem

[shooter bob]

I have an HP Touchsmart tx2. It all started when I bought an external hard drive casing for my old, dead computer. My new computer wouldn't read the drive so I decided to restart the computer. After restart, my computer ran extremely slow. I waited a while for it to speed up but it eventually froze up so I restarted it again. this time it froze mid-startup, so once again I restarted it. It froze again so I pressed ctrl alt delete. Then, my computer asked me if i wanted to do a system restore or not, so I elected not to. then it froze again so i restarted it and it asked me the same thing. this time i did a system restore. it went through the process and told me to press finish to restart the computer because it "fixed" whatever problem, so i did. then my computer started reading me the error message "disk read error press ctrl alt delete to restart". So I did that for a while till i realized that wouldn't work. Then I pressed esc during startup and tried the system restore option there. My computer "loaded the files" and then froze on the blue screen after. so... I restarted it again. this time it skipped the disk read error and went straight into the system restore and consequently froze on the blue screen. so i restarted it again and went into the BIOS setup. I tried to run the hard drive self test but It beep obnoxiously and said "hard drive test failed". so now my computer is stuck in a rut of automatically going to system restore and freezing on the blue screen. PLEASE HELP ME HERE. I'm desparate and have no idea what to do.

[Shinma]

... I tried to run the hard drive self test but It beep obnoxiously and said "hard drive test failed"...

To double check the condition of the HDD,
You can use the HDD manufacturers' diagnostic utility to check.

[Rocketmech]

Have you tried restarting with the external drive disconnected ? That would be the first place to start.

[SpywareDr]

"hard drive test failed"

If the hard drive is failing there is no software available that can fix it.

All hard drives eventually fail. They are mechanical, with moving parts. Moving parts wear. Too much wear leads to total failure.

Some of your data may still be retrievable however. Ontrack for example. It can get expensive though depending on the physical condition of the hard drive.

[shooter bob]

thanks anyway, but the hard drive is just dead.

btw, when I tried system recovery it froze up and turned off at 47%. is there any way that i might be able to get anything off of that hard drive anymore?

[Midknyte]

Not if the hard drive is that far gone. SpywareDr mentioned Ontrack. You can also try Drivesavers

http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/