mixed questions (click of death/48 bit lba & dos)

[McMadman]

Well first part, my 160gb drive has just started clicking. I can access assorted directories in dos, but windows won't load with the drive attached.

This drive is on a promise card, and I'm using win98, I've never had any issues accessing the entire drive when in windows, but not sure how well it'll work in dos mode. Especially since the only drive with free space is also on a controller card.

What options do I have? Obviously if I could actually get into windows things would be much easier. Freezer trick perhaps?

edited for clarification: this is NOT my system drive, but windows will not load with the drive attached, it'll just click away, it ALMOST loaded once, but it hardlocked at the network logon.

 

[McMadman]

anyone?

 

[DaveSimmons]

If you want to be able to RMA it, best bet might be to buy drive #3, use it for a fresh OS install, copy from the dying drive. When you get your RMA back use it for storage or sell it.

You could also borrow an old small drive from a friend who has junk spare parts (like I have half-filling a closet ), install Windows on it, then use a partition copy utility to move Windows back to the RMA replacement when it arrives.

Freezer trick: only works sometimes, and voids your warranty.

 

[McMadman]

I made a little edit to the original post, the drive in question is not my system drive, but windows won't load when its attached/powered.

Ghost MAY be an option once I get the replacement drive (advance rma already submitted) since I can somewhat access it, just with a lot of clicking/slow access, might be able to image the bad drive and get some stuff back.

At this point all I'd like to do is get ~80 gigs of data off the drive and prefrebly keep the long file names intact.

I suppose the good side of this.. no matter what they send me, it'll be a better model.
4G160J6 (5400rpm, it was the biggest drive avaliable about 2 years ago)