American Megatrends Error!

[Knights]

Okay, I've gotten this error on my main computer, which is around 2 years old, and lately has been running very slowly.

Some history on the computer: for almost 2 of the 2 years I've had it and used it, it worked REALLY fast. Then, one day, the internet was not working. We tried everything, went to a store, and they suggested Reformating the drive. So we did. After that, things got a lot slower. Even though there were less files, it went slower.

Slowly, it got slower and slower, and eventually, one morning, I woke up to see this message:

American
Megatrends

Press DEL to run Setup
Press <F8> for BBS POPUP
DDR Frequency 400 Mhz
Checking NVRAM

512MB OK
USB Device(s) : 1 Mouse
Auto-Detecting Pri Master...IDE Hard Disk
Auto-Detecting Pri Slave...Not Detected
Auto-Detecting Sec Master...ATAPI CD-ROM
Pri Master: WDC WD1200JB-00EVA0  15.)5R15
                Ultra DMG Mode-5, S.M.A.R.T. Capable and Status BAD
Sec Master: HL-DT-STDVDRRW GWA-4161B  1.00
                Ultra DMA Mode-2
Auto-Detecing USB Mass Storage Devices . .
00 USB mass storage devices found and configured.

Pri Master Hard Disk:S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD, Backup and Replace.
Press F1 to Resume.

I pressed F1, and it got to windows. Windows ran some sort of "quick-fix" program, and fixed it up, rebooted, and it worked fine!

The next day (today), computer shuts down in the middle of working, and comes up with the SAME message. Only this time, when you press F1, a screen comes up with a Windows message saying it shut down in the middle of work, and when it continues, while it's loading with the green bar dashing across the middle of the screen, all of a sudden it shuts down, and reboots again, coming up with the same error message.


My question to you, is is this possible to be fixed? If not, is it possible to at least get some data off of the hard-drive?

Thanks,
Knights

 

[Prometheus]

Only thing I can think of at this point is sending it to computer recovery.

 

[Knights]

Hehe, that's impossible regardless, seeing as I can't get to windows, or even DOS...


Well, no matter, I've started the reformatting, and if that doesn't work, well, I'll buy a new drive.


Thanks,
Knights

 

[Prometheus]

You should of listened to me.
You'd be very surprised at what they can do.

 

[chris]

Hehe, that's impossible regardless, seeing as I can't get to windows, or even DOS...


Well, no matter, I've started the reformatting, and if that doesn't work, well, I'll buy a new drive.


Thanks,
Knights

Data recovery experts can recover so much data off your hard drive it is unreal. Ive had one done and they found things i lost years ago......infact its really scary

 

[The Helper]

What you should do is take the bad hard drive out and install it as a second or slave hard disc on another computer and see if you can access it as second hard drive. That way you will not have to boot off of it and you might be able to pull files off of it.

 

[Knights]

Very smart idea TH, but how would I go about doing this?

I mean, it's an internal drive, right, so how could I set it up as a second drive? Or is there always two spaces for drives inside computers?


Thanks again,
Knights

 

[The Helper]

Yes, you open up your computer, unscrew the screws on the hard drive, disconnect the IDE cable (the big flat one) and the power (the small square one) then take the drive out of the computer. On the dive will be little jumpers and you have to find the settings to change them to on whatever computer you put it in.

Check out this

Installing a Hard Drive
http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/43/

Another one
http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/install-hard-drive.htm

more
http://www.google.com/search?source...07,GGLG:en&q=removing+hard+drive+instructions

 

[Knights]

TH, thanks again for the help, but I just relized, I've already deleted the old partition, in an atempt to reformat and create a new one, but unfortunatly an error came up about problems with the drive.

So, if you can even take more +rep, there ya go, but if not...thanks a ton.


And even if you didn't help recover data(my fault), you will still help, because I'm getting a new drive either way, and I may need a little help installing it, and that first site you gave me sounds pretty good!


So, thanks again,
Knights


EDIT: It's not letting me give rep, I click the little icon, but nothing happens..

Oh well, I guess a thanks should be enough..