hardware failure - Power outage during disk wipe. What do I do now?

07
2014-07
  • Mark Trexler

    I was using Roadkil Diskwipe on an external hard drive and the power went out. I had removed it from any outlet connection by the time power was restored to prevent power-spike damage (it's on a surge protector, but I didn't want to rely on that). My question is, where do I go from here? Obviously I don't care about preserving any data currently on it, I just want to make sure the drive itself is not terminally damaged. I'm running chkdsk (full), but I don't know if that's the correct step to assessing any damage. If it makes any difference, the hard drive was unallocated at the time of the outage, as Diskwipe requires that for it to run. Also, could something like this cause latent problems with the drive itself (i.e. serious issues that I won't be aware of when testing it now). I'd appreciate any program recommendations if chkdsk is not the most appropriate diagnostic route. Thank you.

    • Answers
  • M K

    You can just run the disk wipe program again and it will force the drive to remap bad sectors, if any. There is no need to run chkdsk separately since:

    1. the bad sector detection and remapping is transparently done by the drive controller when a sector is written to.
    2. the disk is not formatted and part of chkdsk's function is to check the filesystem (which doesn't exist in this case).

    The power outage itself would not cause any hardware issues on the drive since, for a long time, hard drives have been built with a retract circuit that positions the head in a safe place when power is turned off. Since you do not suspect a power spike related damage when the power came back (because it was disconnected), there's nothing to worry.

    If you would like to have more confidence on the state of the drive, run the disk wipe program multiple times continuously over a period of a day.

    For more information, see my answer to the question Can prematurely powering down a computer cause bad sectors in a hard drive?

    Lastly, if you do wish to run chkdsk, use the "/R" command line option (or if you run the check through the hard drive Properties > Tools > Error-checking menu, make sure the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. option is enabled).


    • Related Question

    troubleshooting - Computer won't POST after power outage
  • aaron

    I had just turned my computer on and windows was loading when the power in my neighborhood went out.

    • Normally, when I turn my computer on, the video card fan spins up, then slows down, POST and windows boots.

    • Now, after the blackout, the video card fan spins fast and wont stop. Nothing is displayed on the monitor. The monitor does not detect that the video card is sending it signals, it just stays on standby. No POST or beep codes.

    This is what I have tried so far:

    • My motherboard has 2 PCI express slots and I tried plugging the video card into both of them but that didn't fix anything.
    • I have replaced the power supply, that didn't fix anything.
    • I cleared the CMOS, that didn't fix anything.

    Does anyone have any idea of what could be wrong?


    • Related Answers
  • hanleyp

    A motherboard that shows the symptoms you are describing requires some serious debug. The fan spinning at full speed and lack of POST or beep codes tells me that BIOS isn't loading.

    • Strip the motherboard down to the bare essentials: Processor, 1 stick of memory, video card and of course, power (it might be easier to do this if the motherboard is outside the chassis).
    • Do the correct LEDs come on when you power up the board?
    • Do you see the board POST when you:
      • Swap out the processor?
      • Swap out the video card?
      • Swap out the memory?
      • Swap out the BIOS ROM chip with another programmed one?

    If you have a PORT 80 card that will plug into your motherboard or it has PORT 80 LEDs onboard see what POST code is displayed. You can tell where BIOS is failing by comparing the HEX digits to the BIOS vendor's POST decoder. POST 00h or FFh usually means the BIOS isn't loading.

    If you can't get it to POST this way and you aren't into electronics, then you're pretty much done. Try your parts on another motherboard and see what you can salvage.

  • derobert

    Reseat the RAM. It may have come loose, especially as you were replacing the power supply. Reseat all add-in cards.

    Unplug USB, Firewire, etc. devices.

    If you have another video card, try that. Or try w/o any video card (though some boards will not POST w/o video)

    Try with peripherals unconnected: pull the connectors from the hard drives, optical drives, etc.

    If it still won't post, you're probably looking at replacing the motherboard.

    (Did you have a surge suppressor?)

  • nik

    Recently answered a related question
    What damage will powering down instead of shutting down do?

    Do you have on-board graphics?
    Unplugging the graphics card would let you identify it the card is causing a problem or the POST is hung in some way. Its supposed to BEEP in specific sequences on failures usually.

    In fact, if you do not have on-board graphics, I'd still suggest you unplug the card and check for a boot.

  • evan.bovie

    Try to replace the battery on the motherboard. That should allow your computer to work again and boot to your OS.