Defrag killed my hard drive, I think!

milltown

I think I know the answer but I'll post to get some second opinions.
I was defragging my laptop's 20 gig hard drive. It usually takes about 20 - 30 minutes as I do it quite regularly, but this time round it took over an hour and then hung completely. Tried closing defrag, ng. Tried stopping it in task manager, ng. Had to do a hard shutdown.
When I restarted the computer I got "error loading os, press ctrl alt del to restart" and no joy with safe mode or command prompt startup options.
Booted from CD into XP recovery console and tried the usual chkdsk, fixboot, fixmbr etc. still no good. At this point I figured I would sacrifice the contents of the drive just to get it working again so I tried to format it but couldn't. I had to delete the partition and remake it, then fdisk began checking the integrity of the drive. About 28 hours later it finished, reporting an error in some dll or other and still can't be formatted.
I presume it's dead at this stage or are there any software tools I can try to resurrect it?

Would I be right in guessing the reason for all this is when defrag hung up it had a vital piece of the os in RAM for moving which was lost when I powered down? Still doesn't seem to explain why the disk can't be checked or formatted though.

maxheadroom

If you have braodband, you could download a linux distro and use that to wipe the drive - mandrake's installer is pretty good for that.

GUI

knoppix be a more suited distro

boots off cd

Typedef

Sounds like you've developed bad sectors on your hard disk.

One way to check for that is to format the partition (using Linux) and to instruct the format program to check for badblocks (if supported).

milltown

I have a knoppix cd but if I remember correctly it didn't see any hard drive, I'll have to double check that. The bios sees the drive ok, as does fdisk.
I was looking for a drive utility in knoppix but couldn't see one. Can anyone tell me the console command I need to try, or better still where to find a graphical formatter in Knoppix and any tricks required to use it.
Thanks.

maxheadroom

The reason I suggessted the mandrake installer is because it is sooo easy to use, just like using partition magic.

I don't know of any graphical disk config utility in knoppix, but i haven't really played around with it as much as I should.

parasite

qtparted might be on it
or
cfdisk

milltown

Will have another go when I get home thanks.

milltown

qtparted and cfdisk are both on it but as far as they are concerned there is no hard disk!
I guess it's r.i.p.

spongebob

pc on its side or upside down can sometimes persuade the HDto spin up again if it is a mechanical failure (usually you cna see it in the bios)

if the HD controller board is gone or the cable is loose you will not see it in the bios..that seems to b your prob.