posted 19 years ago
Hi all,
A friend of mine has a laptop (Toshiba, relatively new) that displays 'hard drive read error' (or something, basically "my HDD barfed") immediately upon power-up.
Now, this is fine - it's a work laptop, and there's no problem with returning it broken, the catch is he'd like to ensure that either (1) the HDD is really dead, or (2) some stuff is removed before it's returned. Before you get any naughty ideas, it's stuff like The Sims ;0.
Anyway, my plan is to boot up with a Linux-style disk and run some diagnostic tests. Because it's a laptop, I can't really pull the disk out and plug it into a box that works.
So, my question: does anyone know a good site for info on how to diagnose this sort of thing, and what (Linux-based) FS diagnostic tools exist? It's an XP Pro machine, so I guess it's on NTFS (???).
If anyone can point me at some useful sites I'd be much obliged!
Cheers,
--Tim