Error 24

[codeseer]

fsck was the 'disk doctor'.

Try this:

sudo mke2fs -n /dev/sda1

Post the output.

[anachronon]

fsck was the 'disk doctor'.

Try this:

sudo mke2fs -n /dev/sda1

Post the output.

No luck. The result was:

mke2fs 1.40-WIP (14-Nov-2006)
Could not stat /dev/sda1 --- No such file or directory

The device apparently does not exist; did you specify it correctly?

[codeseer]

I think you may be dealing with a dead drive.

If you have another system, you could slave it in, perhaps you could try reading it from there. If you have a Windows install somewhere, you could perhaps install the ext3 drivers and try reading it.

If you know the brand of the drive, you can usually get a drive diagnostics utility that can be burned to a CD and booted that will tell you more information about the state of the drive.

You could also try the SystemRescueCD, more specifically, the TestDisk and PhotoRec utilities; if you had no luck with Clonezilla or PartImage.

If none of that works, then your only options are to take it to a data recovery place and have them throw it around on their hardware based tools (which is very expensive) or just try to wipe the drive with the vendor specific tools or Secure Erase/HDDErase, which will make low level calls to the drive's chip to basically restore it to 'blank' condition; that is similar to the way it was when it was new, which means it will destroy all data.

Edit:

Let me know if you need any information about any of those options.

[anachronon]

Hey, thanks for all your time and effort. But really, it looks like the drive is dead. No sense going through a lot of trouble to recover a few trivial things. Anything of importance has been backed-up, long ago.

I have spent the day doing numerous other checks on the computer, to make sure that the HDD is the problem, and not a more serious mobo issue. I even ran "memtest86" for over two hours, just to eliminate the possibility of an intermitant memory problem.

From what I have been reading, this particular (older) mobo seems to have problems with the newer SATA drives. Both Asus (mobo) and Seagate (HDD) have claimed that there are no compatibility issues. But, this HDD has had intermitant problems since day-one. Finally, it was damaged beyond repair. Guess, I'll just go back to an IDE. The newer ones seem pretty fast. I do graphics work, but nothing that requires lightning speed, like gaming. Just photo editing and 3D modeling.

Anyway, thanks again.

[anachronon]

Just one other thing. I read that, on this mobo, a newer SATA drive (with NCQ) can sometimes conflict with the nVidia GeForce video card. That may also have been the problem. I could solve that by installing a Promise card. But, that would cost just as much as a new HDD. Plus, the HDD is likely damaged no, so I'd still have to replace it, as well.

[codeseer]

Alrighty. Glad to help.