Hard Drive Probably Dead, Any Fixes?

[hey]

Sounds good, thanks for the advice.

[Gwynplaine]

I have yet another new predicament I would really appreciate help with. If someone reads all this you're a champ but this is what I've been through.

Now that my DVD burner is working I went and burned an ISO of win7 to install on the new hard drive. And the DVD player wouldn't read them as I later found out it doesn't like the brand or something. So I burned one onto an old scratched-the-hell-up DVDR in my closet to try and it worked. But given it's so scratched or something the installation only gets to "expanding windows" 0% then simply stops and eventually gives an error.

Some friend of mine suggested I need to format and partition it, so I format it from my old hard drive and it comes up as drive G. Then I simply mounted the windows7 install ISO and installed it to there. But stupidly I didn't realize how partitioning and multiboot etc. worked and didn't realize I was making my new hard drive into a drive who's access now depends upon this old hard drive and OS. Which I do not want to be the case as ultimately I want to use the new HD as main, move files from old to new, and make old HD the slave.

Okay... so I figure go get better DVDRs that work. Buy some Maxell DVRs... they don't work. Fuck. So I turn to trying to make a USB 8gb bootable windows install. So I follow this guide and go to reboot and install windows... I get an error.

"Windows failed to start yadda yadda.
File:\windows\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe
Info: Windows failed to load because the kernel is missing or corrupt.
Status:0x0000098"

So I figure something went wrong in making the USB installer. I go and try to make the installer by a different, easier tutorial, reboot and it results with the same error.

Now I'm not sure what to think but figure I'll try the 2nd Windows7 ISO I have anyways to make the USB installer. Now using this other installer the windows installer begins loading at reboot but only a mouse cursor shows up and after extensive waiting nothing else happens or loads.

Sick of having errors at every turn not sure what else to try. I don't understand why the windows7 installer installs flawlessly mounted as an ISO, but then gives the error as a bootable USB installer. Any suggestions/help appreciated.

[Kohan]

You've said you're going to try another Windows 7 ISO, and that's good, because that's what I would have suggested. You can also see if your old burns are in fact "bad" by sticking them in another computer (not the one you burned them on, of course, though that in of itself is probably a fine indicator) and seeing if they work. All modern discs and drives should not have any problem reading one another's discs unless you use a file system that's completely foreign to their operating systems.

EDIT: As an aside, according to Wikipedia, the only good Maxell discs are as follows: Maxell Music CD-R, Maxell CD-R Pro, and Maxell CD-R Music Pro (discontinued). If you have anything else, you may have bought another batch of so-so discs, unfortunately. Still, even the most mediocre of discs should be just fine for something like an OS burn -- you only require greater quality if you want something to last a long time, really (though it's true that total garbage can result in bad, wasted discs).

[Gwynplaine]

Since my new HD is basically setup with windows7 now, the only trouble I have with that is that it's being associated through my old HD and won't just startup as it's own standalone OS. So is there any easy way to just tell it to just not do that and that now it's gonna be the main HD? Everything I read over Googling sounds like the only way to do it is to do a fresh install of Windows, is that so?

[Kohan]

Since my new HD is basically setup with windows7 now, the only trouble I have with that is that it's being associated through my old HD and won't just startup as it's own standalone OS. So is there any easy way to just tell it to just not do that and that now it's gonna be the main HD? Everything I read over Googling sounds like the only way to do it is to do a fresh install of Windows, is that so?

No, you can edit the startup information, if you'd prefer to do that. I should have mentioned that, too. I have done this in the past when I've had HDDs crash on multi-HDD computers with dependencies similar to yours.

Explanation of the system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows...tartup_process

People discussing a similar situation to yours (scroll past the person recommending a fresh installation): http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/w...e-7907549326ab

Software that's supposed to simplify modifying it (I've used this in the past, though it's been a while): http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

If you feel uncomfortable with any of that, however, a fresh installation would indeed be the best option. Make sure you disconnect the old HDD before you attempt a new install.

[Gwynplaine]

Just wanted to update this with my progress. I think most of my problem/s derived from not knowing well enough to disconnect other hard drives when installing the OS. Caused some confusion and boot havoc but I'm finally straightened out. Long story short I went into the WinXP recovery console and had to do /fixmbr and /fixboot to straighten it out and get rid of the Win7 prompt stuff left over from failed installs. Then I made a USB Windows 7 installer, stuck only one hard drive at a time onto my old PC's case/motherboard, and Windows7 finally installed on both my new and old HD just great. My last hard drive is still dead it seems but at least now I have a new one and quite a bit of data still intact.