Expert: Brian Benosky - 2/13/2008

Question
Hi Keith,

My in-laws can't get into their Dell computer. When they try to log in the response is emminent computer failure. What does that mean?

Thank you for your help,
Sloane

Answer
Hi Sloane

My name is Brian and I have taken your question over from the AllExperts pool.  There is an urgency to the warning, and I suggest that your in-laws act quickly in order to save data.  Imminent failure means that the hard drive could be about to die.  Most drives today have something called SMART technology built in, which stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology.  Basically, it is a monitoring system for computer hard disks to detect and report on various indicators of reliability, in the hope of anticipating failures.  In any event, if the computer won't boot at all, the drive may already be dead.  See if you can do the following steps to attempt a recovery:

(To start the computer from the Windows XP CD-ROM, you may need to configure the basic input/output system (BIOS) of the computer to boot from your CD-ROM drive.)

To run the Recovery Console from the Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD-ROM, use the following steps:

  1. Insert the Windows XP startup disk into the floppy disk drive, or insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer.  Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted to do so.
  2. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
  3. When you are prompted to do so, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.
  4. At the command prompt, type "chkdsk /r" without the quotes.  The system will now locate bad sectors on the hard drive and recover any readable information.
  5. To exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type exit at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

Hopefully that will recover the drive enough to make a backup of important data so that they can move it to another hard drive.  If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask and I'll be glad to help.

Brian