Windows 7 Boot/BCD Issue

[mvern2]

Hi Everyone,
I installed Win 7 64 bit back in February.
All of a sudden this weekend it decided to have a SMART Error which is related to a Boot/BCD issue. Nothing was changed or installed that would of affected the drive.

I have read many forms and they all say to boot from disk and run the Windows Recovery Program and run the repair module to fix the issue. I had done this and the recovery module just hung there. Now when i try to boot from the win 7 disk, it will not let me.

So i tried something:
1) i removed the bum drive and installed win 7 on a spare harddrive so there is nothing wrong with my system.

2) i plug in the bum drive in again and select the newly formatted drive to boot from. the Win 7 logo hangs (does not boot)

3) I boot the system with just the newly formatted drive. I then plug in the bum drive and it slows down my system. My Computer recognizes the drive (after about 5-10 min) but is not able to load the contents.

4) I remove the bum drive and the system jumps back to life.

Is the bum drive a goner? is there any way to save the data if i cant boot from the Win 7 disk and the drive is not recognizable/readable from another install of the OS from another drive?

let me know if you need any other details...i hope i covered it all.

Thanks

[The Dude]

It defiantly sounds like your hard drive has failed. I think it's the other way around though, the boot/BCD failure is related to (caused by) the SMART error. If it's not making any clicking sounds my guess is the electronics (controller) has failed. If you had an identical drive you could try swapping the circuit boards and maybe get your data back. But if the BIOS can't see it and it prevents your PC from booting your odds of getting data off of it are slim. If it was clicking or making other strange noises I would suggest the freezer trick but I don't think that will work in this case. If all else fails you could try it. If you have an external USB drive enclosure it might be worth a shot putting it in that and connecting it after windows loads.

[mvern2]

there is no clicking noise and the bios does recognize the drive (when the comp loads and doing its checks it see the drive)

i dont have an identical drive but i think i have and external USB Drive somewhere...ill give this a try.
I was talking to a co-work and he suggested it could also be a burnt out sector on the drive.

[The Dude]

Most of the time if it's mechanical failure the drive will still show up in the BIOS. When the electronics crap out the BIOS can't figure out what it is and what it does. If a section of the platter was damaged I would expect the drive to still work. You just wouldn't be able to acces the data on that section of the platter. If it was the boot sector with the master file table you likely wouldn't be able to "easily" get any data. You would have to use data recovery programs. When the controller goes the data is usually still there, there's just no way to get it without replacing the controller. If the hardware is broken no amount of software is going make the heads move.

When you slaved the drive in your PC did you check the drive select jumpers? You will likely have to chang the jumpers to make it a slave if it's on the same channel with another drive. That is if its and IDE drive. If it's a SATA drive there are no jumpers.