Halp Right Linux boffins - sort me out

Figure out who makes the harddrive. The BIOS should tell you. Then download the hdd manufacturer's diagnostic cd and burn to a cdr. Then run the diag on the harddrive. If it comes back with any issues, there's your problem. You could also try booting from a linux live cd / rescue cd and see if you can run fsck on all of the partitions. This may help temporarily in that you may get access to some of your files. Copy them elsewhere quickly before the hdd totally shits the bed.

Conclusion, replace the harddrive. Hope your data is still intact. Restore from backups.

Edit: these instructions are pretty much for any OS.
 
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Figure out who makes the harddrive. The BIOS should tell you. Then download the hdd manufacturer's diagnostic cd and burn to a cdr. Then run the diag on the harddrive. If it comes back with any issues, there's your problem. You could also try booting from a linux live cd / rescue cd and see if you can run fsck on all of the partitions. This may help temporarily in that you may get access to some of your files. Copy them elsewhere quickly before the hdd totally shits the bed.

Conclusion, replace the harddrive. Hope your data is still intact. Restore from backups.

Edit: these instructions are pretty much for any OS.

Great advice, will do. Need to go pick myself up a hdd. I know the data is there and it seems to be alright (like I say it works 10% of the time) so I guess just keep mounting and unmounting until the files show then GO GO GO. It's so annoying!!
 
mount/unmount should be fairly safe, just make sure you're not writing anything at all to that drive in case those sectors are ignored by the file system and treated as empty, overwriting your data.

barring severe physical damage - and sometimes even then :egads: - pretty much any hard drive can be recovered assuming the data hasn't been overwrotened. careful not to make your situation worse :fly: I've done it too many times
 
linux!

i'm going to buy a really expensive computer and turn it into a fucking vtech.
 
sorry I didn't see this thread eariler. yes the hard disk is dying.

back up what data you can and format it and slag it with a sledge hammer.

also it could be due to you installing and repartitioning a NTFS drive to dual boot when it was bad to begin with.

Toshiba drive?
 
hmmm bias based on real life experience.

LOL

How much you wanna bet there are people who SWEAR by (company name goes here)? It has NOTHING to do with the company. They are all pretty much using the same technology and components from China. Sorry to hear you've had bad luck with (company name goes here), but many other people will say the same about any hard drive company you "love".