SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 2

Question

Ran chkdsk, got 24% complete. Warning immed. back up your data!  Vista won't boot up, stuck in a loop asking to launch startup repair (recommended) or start windows normally and just comes back to the same screen regardless of choice. can I back up files some how at this point?

please assist.

james

Answer 1

Hi jdavis108,

Welcome to Windows Vista Answers Forums!

If you have a Vista full version Installation Disc (not Recovery disc) you try the following steps to take backup of the Data.

1. Insert the installation disc.

2. Restartyour computer.

3. Click the Start button, click the arrow next to the Lock button, and then click Restart. If prompted, press any key to start Windows from the installation disc.

Note: If your computer is not configured to start from a CD or DVD, check the information that came with your computer. You may need to change your computer's BIOS settings. For more information, see BIOS: frequently asked questions.

4. Choose your language settings, and then click Next.

5. Click Repair your computer.

6. Select the operating system you want to repair, and then click Next.

7. On the System Recovery Options menu, click Command prompt.
8. In command prompt type notepad and press Enter.
9. In the notepad click on File and click on Open.
10. In the Open Windows, you can explore your C drive and copy the data and move it to a Flash drive or a different partition.

If you can take backup, then take backup of the important data and perform a checkdisk /r to repair the bad sectors by following the steps mentioned below.

You may run a Checkdisk /r to repair problems related to bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files, and directory errors from the Command prompt in System Recovery Options menu.

1. Insert the installation disc.

2. Restartyour computer.

3. Click the Start button, click the arrow next to the Lock button, and then click Restart. If prompted, press any key to start Windows from the installation disc.

Note: If your computer is not configured to start from a CD or DVD, check the information that came with your computer. You may need to change your computer's BIOS settings. For more information, see BIOS: frequently asked questions.

4. Choose your language settings, and then click Next.

5. Click Repair your computer.

6. Select the operating system you want to repair, and then click Next.

7. On the System Recovery Options menu, click Command prompt.

You may run a Checkdsk to repair problems related to bad sectors, lost clusters, cross-linked files, and directory errors.

Note: When you run the checkdisk, there are chances of losing data so you can take a backup before running checkdisk.

1. At a command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER

chkdsk /r X:( drive letter)

2. Press Y when you are prompted to check the disk the next time that the system restarts.

3. Close all applications, and then restart the computer.

Hope this information is useful.

Praseetha K

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

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