HD521-2W error on HP PC

[Aaflac]

Jin,

Got an SOS call this evening and I'm helping some old friends with their computer. It is an HP Pavillion a1267c running Windows XP Media Center Edition. It won't boot up at all, not in safe mode, last known good configuration, etc.

Some HP Diagnostics gave an HD521-2W error. Googling this sort of points towards hard drive trouble.

Trying to figure out how to do a chkdsk /r
Not sure if the PC has the Recovery Console installed.

Do not have a Windows XP CD.

Any suggestions??

[jintan]

They can Go here and create a Recovery Console CD. Just click the link (the "Download the package here" link) provided there to download the recovery_console_cd.zip and unzip that to your desktop.

Then inside the recovery_console_cd folder that created locate and click on the IE icon titled Readme. This will open a webpage, which will provide the simple steps you will need to follow, as well as a clickable link to go to the MS download page where you can select the BootDisk file download appropriate for your operating system. For example, for an XP SP2 Home Edition you would be downloading WindowsXP-KB310994-SP2-Home-BootDisk-ENU.exe.

For emergency boot disk uses, as well as to access the Recovery Console, the SP2 version can also be used on systems that have the SP3 upgrade.

Fact is most any XP, or even the 2K version, will work, as far as just gaining access to the Recovery Console Prompt.

Then yes, at the prompt type:

chkdsk /r

And see if Windows will locate and do some repairs enough to then boot to Windows.

[Aaflac]

Thanks for the info, Jin!!

Forgot about having an XP Pro SP3 OEM Installation CD.

Would that do the job, or would downloading the ISO, etc., be best?

Don’t know if their HP PC has SP2 or SP3...

[jintan]

Matching the operating system/service pack would really only be important if a person needed to restore system files, or do procedures like a Repair Install. To just access the Recovery Console prompt, most disk versions of XP will suffice, so that OEM CD should do fine.

[Aaflac]

Burned a CD with the ISO, and also have the OEM CD, so, will be doing a chkdsk /r sometime tomorrow.

As you know better than I, these HP computers have a partition with an image of the OS. Would you do a chkdisk C: /r, skipping partition D:, or go for chkdsk /r?

[jintan]

When a volume/drive is not identified chkdsk is run on the current drive. The BIOS wouldn't necessarily be looking to the hidden recovery partition in such ways as to kill a successful read of the hard drive. More likely the corruption is the MFT on the "system" drive, so chkdsk /r from the C:\Windows\> prompt is the best choice for now.

[Aaflac]

Thanks, Jin!

Just had a chat with HP, and the error message HD521-2w points to a bad hard drive. Going to run the chkdsk anyway, but HP is saying 'need to buy new one'.

The computer is 5 years old, but hard drives could go at any time...

With W7 out on the market, my friends may just opt to buy a new machine anyway. These are older folks, and that machine is their 'world' to communicate with their family, etc. They might keep it as a secondary...we'll see.

[Aaflac]

Well, the decision made was to buy a new hard drive.

Installed it, and used the 3 Recovery CDs obtained from HP. Took about 7 hours to run them, and install everything as of the day the PC was purchased.

The machine works fine now, and security and other programs are in place. The owners are very pleased.


Do have two questions.

1. Is there any particular type of software you personally use to check the HDD to reconfirm it is bad, other than the Recovery Console and chkdsk /r?

2. There are some German documents on the bad HDD that my friends want to retrieve. I know it can be done with Linux, however, do you know of any free software available to perform this task?

Once again, thanks for your help, Jin.

[jintan]

Good you got that all squared away. The good analysis softwares tend to cost quite a bit, but the individual drive vendor utilities are usually free. A bit dated, but this page is a good starting place for those.

The problem with data retrieving without special drive connection devices is gaining access to the drive itself. Slave a bad drive, that system will fail to boot for the same reason the original computer wouldn't. Can't make heads or tails of the drive's file system. Using a Linux disk like Knoppix works well because the problem drive just stays as is, and Linux loads to RAM.

[Aaflac]

Do you recall what the file manager in Knoppix is called?

It is not Midnight Commander, is it?