Trouble.....

Bad luck, Jafo. Hope you get it sorted out without losing anything.

Sorry to hear that Paul Hope you can retrieve the stuff. Check your mail for a suggestion.

Hi, Richard...

It's an 'old' bios...doesn't see a 36gig drive....that's on a Promise ATA66 card...along with a 160gig which is limited by the card to 128gig.
The drive was developing a death-rattle in defrag...and I think it quietly expired while norton was bug-checking...

sorry to read this Jafo...

something came to mind, does the drive spin up?
if so, pull the data cable, boot XP, shut down, plug data cable in and boot xp
see if it picks up the drive on the second boot?

depending on the drive you can probably download Disktune or OnTrack at the manufaturers site.
decompress with a floppy in your A: and it will create a boot disk so it can check the drives motherboard and also the heads/platters.

mmm though I am probably being redundant in mentioning the above in that you've got a grasp on IT to begin with.

good luck with it and hoping for a recovery of data

"manufacturers"

Ah...the old tap the thing with a hammer trick will probably get it to spin up...

Done that before...

If need be I'll hunt up a board with a newer bios as well...I ain't licked quite yet...

I've sent you another email.

I got it via Express...Outlook won't load...so it seems I have 'issues'...

Oh dear, I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Crossed fingers worked...found drive...but still no Outlook...bit more to do....

Do you have an Outlook personal folder (*.pst file) on that drive?

Good to read that it's alive, well breathing without a respirator at least
Hoping you get what you need off it and it stays functional for a swap drive at least.

I rapped one on the side of my desk once and was able to pull my stuff I needed from it

also, if it does spin up and you pull your stuff from it. Most drives come with a driver and software you use to format it that allows older bios to use the whole drive, if you don't have the driver and software you can download it from the drives site to reformat, might help keep it alive and you could use it as a swap drive for PSP and such?

Richard..I copied one to there once as a backup, that's all.
The 'main' one is on the 'C' as usual.

Backed that one to a safe drive...but if it's corrupted that could be why Outlook crashes...[I know it's not too big...had kept an eye on that limit].

Tried a repair in Office...no go.
Will try uninstall and reinstall of Office.

And burn the psd to CD and load into another Comp to check it..

Richard..I copied one to there once as a backup, that''s all.
The ''main'' one is on the ''C'' as usual.

Backed that one to a safe drive...but if it''s corrupted that could be why Outlook crashes...[I know it''s not too big...had kept an eye on that limit].

Tried a repair in Office...no go.
Will try uninstall and reinstall of Office.

And burn the pst to CD and load into another Comp to check it..
[Message Edited]

Jafo, have you tried to update your Bios software? I had to do that with my MB that I have now. It fixed several issues that I was having. Just follow the instructions closely though or you won't be able to run your computer anymore

Weaksid...the limitations that prevent the Bios from reading big drives is related to the ATA'speed/capacity of the Ide channels....to read above 128gig you need the ATA133 standard...My Promise card is ATA66 and the Abit BX6 slot1 board is ATA33
The ATA66 Promise bios cannot be flashed to compensate...it's beyond the parameters.
I got the 160gig for the price of an 80, so 128 is still a bonus...

O' I didn't realize that it was that old. ... My bad.

Jafo, I have an older bios too on my main desktop puter and if I 'flash' it then it will no longer recognize my frickin' USB ports. Sooooo, I've opted to not update my bios. Which means my desktp puter will only be good for so long if I don't install new USB ports.

BUT, if you want to talk 'trauma'

Try this:

Buy a BRAND NEW DELL super computer latest 'everything' and within 4 months the hard-drive dies BUT lucky me it dies slowly enough for me to make backups on zip drives (I had to back up stuff on over 20 zip drive disks).

Anyway. I used to be so lazy about backing up my files because I was a bit arrogant in the fact that I'm computer savvy but no amount of computer savvy can save you from a failing drive, period.

SO, PEOPLE looking and listening! If you have tons of baby pictures and and family photos of your family on your hard disk that you haven't backed up on a floppy/zip/CD then PLEASE DO IT NOW for your own sanity!

I hate to sound 'dramatic' but I liken it to a 'house-fire' when everything is burned to the ground and you are left utterly devastated and having to start back at ground zero.

Shmoopy...the dying drive had about 30gig on it...that'd be about 300 zip disks or about 40 CDs.
Not 'really' a practical solution...but I managed to dump all of it onto the other HD so all is well[ish].

Now I need to see if the physical drive itself is salvagable....

Also...once copied over, it was a simple matter to re-assign drive letters and all the proggies access just like before...as easy as pie...

Hey Paul, I just woke up ..good to hear about the data files etc. Is Outlook behaving now?

no...had to extract the messages to Express [with Express] because Outlook crashes on loading.
Tried an Office repair...no good.
Will go for Deleting Office and reinstall instead...[should work]...

May the force be with you

@ dark mist.
Such things happends jafo, imagine how I felt when my hard disk stopped with it, the thing in my 2e comp was working as a server, have to re-do my site... well, needed to be updated anyway

Well...got it all together again.
Disabled virus checking and defragging on the 'iffy' drive to minimise head 'work', and partitioned the drive into 4 so that if the problem is specific to one area of the disk surface the other partitions 'should' be OK....unless the boot sector fries or there's a full mechanical failure...

Outlook was 'frustrating'. I tried the Scanpst.exe file to see if the pst was damaged...it wasn't, so I backed it up and deleted its normal position.
That didn't work...still crashed.
Uninstalled Office 2k and reinstalled.
That didn't work...still crashed.
Scratched my head some more.
That didn't work...still crashed.
Got desperate and deleted the files from...
C:\Documents and Settings\Paul Martin\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
And from...
C:\Documents and Settings\Paul Martin\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\
And, presto...it loaded.
And asked for the pst location...I pointed to it and all was well again...
It was the other folder's settings that were corrupted.
Of course, dunno why it happened, but just glad I managed to sort it...