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Old October 27th 17, 02:43 PM posted to alt.comp.os.windows-8
Paul[_32_]
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Posts: 11,873
Default Asus X550J laptop

Mayayana wrote:
"Mayayana" wrote

| The boot manager and DVD drive disappear off and
| on, with no apparent pattern. I got the Win8.1 disk to
| run. It didn't need a key.

Last night I was able to test the hard disk and it
seems to be faulty. This AM I was able to boot the
BootIt CD with no hard disk in place. But I needed
to enable CSM to do it. I'm still a bit confused
about the effect of IDE vs AHCI, CSM enabled/disabled,
fast boot, etc. I need CSM to boot from at least
some CDs/DVDs. On the other hand, the Win8
install DVD wouldn't touch the GPT partitions with
CSM enabled. Once I disabled CSM it seemed to
work, but then complained about missing files. From
looking online I'm guessing that might be a result
of not have SATA drivers and needing AHCI/IDE
set to IDE.
At this point I think the the hard disk must be kaput
and am trying to figure out whether the rest is OK.
Memeory tests file. I would think the motherboard
must, then, be OK. ?


Both Seagate and Western Digital, offer hard drive
test programs. You can run those, do the short or long
test, and get an analysis. Even using some utility to
review SMART parameters, might show the drive already
has too many re-allocations, indicating a "health"
problem. The HDD sector sparing system is automatic and
non-reversible, so you cannot ask the hard drive to
scan and re-evaluate the decisions it's made. When it
indicates, via SMART, that only X percent of spares
remain, the writing is on the wall with regard to
drive health.

The drive test program from one of the two companies,
will probably tell you how bad it is.

https://www.seagate.com/ca/en/suppor...oads/seatools/

"Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows"
https://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?p=3

Then, you will be cloning the drive, with something.
Let's hope there are no CRC errors while you do so,
as then there's that book I have to write... :-)

I think something called R-studio can do cloning with
CRC errors (equiv. to ddrescue), and it turns into payware
if you "wanted your files back". I haven't tested it,
and just noticed it in passing.

Paul
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