unreadable Hard Drive with prior freeze up problems

[COOKJAN]

This is my first post on this site.  I have some knowledge of computers and programs and have worked on them for some time, but now I am really stuck.

I have a computer that started to freeze continuously after a period of time of running great.  There is some history of my attempts to fix the problem which I will try and explain to the best of my ability.

This computer originally was used at my office.  My boss always gave me the computers we were replacing and if the computer was really bad I extracted any parts that were any good, secure erased the hard drive if it was bad and got rid of it and kept any good cards etc.

This drive was originally on ME with an upgrade to Windows Xp loaded over it.  I secure erased the drive with my Drive Works program to remove any work files and then proceeded to partition and format the drive and toggled the boot to work.  I have used this program several times and it works great.  I wanted  to make the OS XP.  My cd was an upgrade so I started with the XP, inserted the ME cd at the proper time and reinserted the XP cd.  I reformatted the drive to NTFS using the XP cd and went ahead with the install.  All worked fine as usual when I use Drive Works.

I continued loading my programs and upgrading XP---the longest upgrade time there is!!—and continued downloading the other programs I needed on the computer, i.e. Adobe Reader, Sun Java etc.  and of course more continuous XP upgrades.  I made several  restore points along the way.  This was done over a period of time.

The computer worked great for sometime.  Then the computer decided it was going to freeze up continuously.  I may have been on for several hours working fine or 20 minutes or just a short shot.  It gradually got worse.  During that time I tried to decipher what had gone wrong.  I was able to run a scan disk and no errors were found.  But, it would not let me restore to any restore point on the computer or run my virus scan which is McAfee Security Suite.  I have that program on all three of my computers.  I know there are several more out there better, but this is what I have.  I ran the virus scans on the other two computers and no viruses.  Since they are networked, I thought that a wise thing to do.   

Ok, I figured I could have had a software issue first as I had a problem getting my HP 1210 ix program to work correctly and had gone ahead and removed it, re-added it, upgraded it on line etc.  Taking that off did not work.  So I checked my Administrator Tools and found the date that it appeared the problem may have started.  I checked my restore points for that date and had downloaded Sun Java, cd installed Microsoft Office and windows had downloaded the Hp software.  I then tried to uninstall all three of those programs.  Java gave me a fatal error saying that the program did not install properly.

Since I could not restore, at that point I decided to start all over with the Drive Works.  Well-----This time the computer froze while trying to secure erase.  This is a time consuming program and it would just not stay on long enough.  The drive was still reading DOS at that time so I was able to bring up the program again and went to do a format first to see if I could at least get trough that.  It did format, but unable to complete the scan etc.  So I tried again… same thing.  Then I decided to give the ME cd a try.  Apparently some of the things on the drive had been erased enough to start the install process.  I went for the format first as I was unsure as to how far the format on Drive Works got.  The format went along until the scan and then I got the bad sector found.  The last sector on the drive.  Never had that on this drive.  I believe it is because it never finished formatting from the Drive Works and kept freezing up.  I aborted and now I have a non readable disk.

I took a look at the inside of the computer and cleaned up the fans etc. with Blow Off.  They were dirty and I wondered if that was part of my freeze up.

Ok next thing I tried was Drive Works again.  First on the CD and then on A  The program started to load and then froze up.

I also have a Drive Washer CD.  That cd program came up, but did not see the drive.

Next step DOS  I stuck in the MS-DOS start up disk and it booted to A fine.  I changed the directory to C and did a dir.  I got the can not read message and aborted.  I tried a few times with different commands as I though maybe I could do an fdisk to go forward.  Same .. no luck.

Then I went to the BIOS settings.  I checked all the settings.  Oh.  I forgot the ME setup also told me the LBA may be locked.  That means I can’t get to the drive.  When I aborted the ME setting I could no longer get to the drive at all.

The BIOS settings see the drive It is an IDE drive  the LBA is on and BLK Mod on;
Size is 40020 MB;  clyn 19158; Head 16; WPcom 0; Sec 225; PIOMOD 4, 32 bit

I get one beep when it starts up.

I am getting conflicting advise from a few people I know.  One the drive was bad when I started this and caused the freeze, two it could be the controller, three it could be the motherboard.

Is there anyway to make the drive readable since the computer does recognize it is there?
I do have another old drive, but I am not sure if it fits or not.  I will be checking that today.  I was thinking that if I have the brackets another possibility would be a piggy back and try and get to the drive that way, but if it is not reading the drive, would it that way?

I have the time to mess with it now as I have a broken leg and I am home from work.  As to purchasing a new drive, my husband is currently on Unemployment and with me off of work I do not think so.  I would like to try and save this.  Sorry this is so long, but I thought you would need to know the whole story.

I do not fear DOS commands, but do not remember a lot of them.  I would need specific commands.
 
Any suggestions out there.  I am interested in what you may think the cause of the freeze ups was too.  I know it could be several factors.

Thanks for any help     Jan

[patio]

Interesting dilemna...
Since you have ran chkdsk and the A/V scans let's assume the drive is healthy for now...although this may turn out to not be the case.
I haven't used Drive Works for years but i remember it to be a pretty solid tool...so we'll also assume that it isn't the issue either....that being said:
One thing that caught my eye was

The BIOS settings see the drive It is an IDE drive  the LBA is on and BLK Mod on;
Size is 40020 MB;  clyn 19158; Head 16; WPcom 0; Sec 225; PIOMOD 4, 32 bit

this.
Windows will do this to a drive when there are more than 5 or 6 consecutive read/write errors to protect the drive and itself. Since it's the slowest possible transfer rate even a DOS based app may have hiccups that would not allow you to finish your work.

Might not be a fix but i would try this...hook up the drive as a slave on a working Windows machine.
Run chkdsk /r again on it just to be sure.
Then travel Here and skip all the Hotfix listed and scroll down to the workaround instructions to get the drive back out of PIO mode.
As i stated no promises on the results but you may wind up rescuing a perfectly good drive.
Best of Luck.

[COOKJAN]

I will give that a try.  I have to get my husband off the working computer to do so. So I expect not today.   I will get back to you.  Thanks.

[COOKJAN]

I got another suggestion and tried that first because it is difficult for me to remove the drive with my broken leg.  I thought I might better try something first.  I took an ME startup disk and tried to do a debug.  Would not read the command.  I did a dir and the fdisk was on the ME startup so i tried that command.  It worked.  I was thinking all would be well, but it would not let me format the drive.  Don't worry I used the correct commands.  Anyway after playing around for a while I decided to stick in my Drive Works again.  Wala!   The program was now working.  I gues the fdisk got that to work.   

In drive works I tried to just do a format as it saw the drive.  No luck it froze up again.  Well then I decided to go ahead and try and erase the drive  again, but this time with a less secure erase as the secure erase takes forever and there was nothing on the drive to worry about.  So this time no freeze ups!  It is still running and has about an hour to go.  I will then try the partition and format in the Drive Works program and pray that the monster does not freeze.

If all that fails I will take out the drive and check for manufacture utilities on line.

I think I am going brain dead because I can not remember how to print out my specs on the hardware.  Maybe the brain bruse from the accident has finally gotten to me!!  I have done this before, but just plain don't remember.  Could you give me directions on that?  I would print them out for my other computers and the ones the office when I can go back to work.

Thanks in advance.

I will post the progress tomorrow.  This is very time consuming, but right now with my broken leg I have a lot of time on my hands!

[BC_Programmer]

I took an ME startup disk and tried to do a debug.

err.... why?