Is there any hope? = Drive 0: maxtor 6y080m0 - fail. return code 7

Hi Tour8,

Well, I would suggest that you have another hard drive ready to replace this one.  

Retrieving data from this drive could be a little tricky depending on the number of defects it currently has. (Error 07 - "unrecoverable" read error).  I would suggest that you download Seatools from Seagate's website (runs on Seagate and Maxtor).  This would at least give you a better idea about how bad your hard drive is.  Upon completion of the test it will flag the defects and allow you to overwrite the locations, thus getting rid of the "uncorrectables". 

You could attempt to boot your hard drive again or reinstall the operating system to a new drive and connect this one as a second drive to recover your data.

You will probably need another SATA cable for the new drive, since I don't think Dell ships an additional.  (cheap)

As far as Seatools is concerned, I would download the DOS version.  You wouldn't want to attempt this in Windows anyway unless you were already booting to a good drive and running this on the target.  Now, if the DOS version runs and corrects the defects (provided that there aren't a ton) then you could probably boot the old drive as before.

If it continues to work then I would suggest backing up your data to another source.  Also, if it seems to be working normally (time being) then you could also use Ghost (or equivalent) to clone to the new drive.  This would eliminate the reinstall process and you'd be up and running sooner.

(Note: if you decide to clone your drive from the old to the new make sure to remove the old drive before booting to the new one.) - I've seen problems before with drive letters and boot drives when both drives were left after cloning. =)

Thanks for the reply.

I'll try and run seatools if I can figure out how to do it.

But I'm going to get ready to but a new hardrive.

Assuming I install a new hardrive, how do I connect the old drive to test if I can recover data?  What cables or connections do I need?

I figured out how to run the dos version of sea tools.

I tried to run the long test and it said a "SMART trip" was detected.

I ran the long test anyway and it repaired a bunch of errors.  After that it said the drive passed.

Upon restarting I still get the blue screen that says:

 c000021a {Fatal System Error}

Is this bad news?   

Stop trying to boot this drive.  Mount it as a secondary in a working system - then see what you can still read.  The more you try to do to a failing drive, the lower your chances of recovering data from it.

Hi Tour8,

As I stated above...  Booting and running the drive would depend on how many defects were encountered.  If a "SMART trip" was encountered while testing then it's likely that there are too many defects to operate properly. 

Now, that Seatools has corrected the "uncorrectables" encountered you can take EJN63's advice on mounting this drive as a secondary device in order to recover some data.

Thanks for the tips ejn63 and Ryanh6178.

I ordered a new hard drive and sata cable.  I will attempt to mount my old hard drive as a second when all the equipment comes in.  That should be fun. :smileywink: 

I took the old drive (maxtor 80 gb) out and put the new one (western digital 160 gb) in.

I installed the Dell recovery cd.  So the new hard drive is the c: drive.

I then put the old drive in.  I connected the molex power connector and the sata cable to the old drive.  I also plugged the sata cable to one of the 3 free slots on the mother board.

Yet my computer doesn't recognize the old drive.  I went to "my computer" > "manage" > "disk management" and only the c: drive is shown.

Did I incorrectly connect something?  Is the old hard drive shot?  Does the fact that the new hard drive is SATA2 mean anything; is it causing a problem? 

tour8

Was the SATA port, the drive is connected to, set to Auto/On [enabled] in the System setup?

See here

Bev.


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Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.

Sweeeet!  That worked.

The old drive shows up as e: in "disk management"

It's divided into 3 parts, FAt, Fat 32, and NTFS.  They all are listed as "healthy."

So what should I do?

Do I just take the important files (word docs, pictures, etc) from the old drive and drop them in the new one?  Then I can reinstall all the programs in the new drive using dell's cds or its website.  

Or do I clone the old drive?  Will this cause the new drive to have the same problem that the old one had?   

Thanks everyone for their help!  You saved me big bucks and lots of worry.