I think it died...

JustinJustin Atlanta
edited August 2004 in Hardware
OK, I think my HD died. Just want to make sure I am right. Go to Boot up, boots into windows title screen, blanks out and goes back to the initial boot screen. I tried changing the boot sequence to go from the HD first, then I tried going from the disk and it never gets past the title screen. It sounds like my HD may not be spining up as it needs to and I have been hearing horrible things coming from the general area of the drive. Like I said , I think it died but I just need some professional opinions. Anything else I should try? I am going to get another HD and set the old one as a slave to see if I can access and extract anything from it. I got a blue "screen of death" during a system restore and that was like the third one in the same day. I was also thinking that maybe windows lost a loading component due to the interrupted system restore and that could keep it from booting into windows. The HD light comes on showing activity so it seems like the drive is accessable but just won't load windows. I can't seem to get the WIN XP Pro disk to do anything helpful. Anything anybody could suggest would be helpful. THANKS!!!!! :thumbsup:

Comments

  • kanezfankanezfan sunny south florida Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    every drive manufacturer has a diagnostic utility you can download and run on the drive to see if it's dead/dying. get that and run it.
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited August 2004
    Did that a few days ago and it said everything was fine. Now I can't even get into windows to run it.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited August 2004
    What brand & model of hard disk? :)

    They will also have a dos level utility you can load. My deduction is seeing as you have mentioned a windows tool that this is a seagate drive??

    One other way to check is to boot off the windows CD-rom. Then use the recovery console to see if you can see the problematic Windows installation :)

    Boot off CD->Hit R for repair at setup screen->Hit C for recovery console :)
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited August 2004
    The drive it a Seagate Barriccudda 160GB.
    When I try to boot from the CD, it still goes backl to the "award" screen after it blanks out fro the Windows startup screen. Maybe I am doing it wrong. Booting from the CD should have nothing to do with the HDD right?
  • madmatmadmat
    edited August 2004
    Well, if the drive has an electrical problem in it's controller circuitry it very well could force a reboot which is what is happening to cause it to post again. I had that happen when one of my SATA WD1200-JD's died on me a while back, try disconnecting the drive and booting off the cd, if the drive IS the culprit the install will proceed to the point past where it's stalling at now and tell you there's no storage device available and ask to reboot.
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited August 2004
    I'll try that madmat, anybody else care to throw their two cents in before I head home to deal with the crisis?
  • gtghmgtghm New
    edited August 2004
    Yea, I would suggest that the madmat thing sounds like a great idea.
    However there are other things that can cause the probelms that you are having.
    The first 2 that come to my mind are PSU or the memory.

    If you have another system you could try putting the HD in that system and see what happends...

    GL,
    "g"
  • JustinJustin Atlanta
    edited August 2004
    I will give that a shot, after disconnecting the HDD, it booted off the disk and of course, found no HDD. The PSU and RAM have been solid for some time now. I will try putting that HDD in a different system and see if that makes a difference. Any other suggestions?
  • madmatmadmat
    edited August 2004
    If it made it to the point where it found no HDD I'd say that it was an issue with the controller causing the reboot as that's exactly what happened when my WD died, I'll wager that everything else is ok and that the PC you put that 160 in will begin having the problem instead.
    My recomendation is reload the OS on a spare HDD if you have one and see if it'll load and if so when the 160 comes back from RMA just ghost the load to the 160.
    When I RMA'd the WD I just told the tech on the phone that it was so far gone that it'd kill my system as soon as my board tried to initialize it and they gave me an RMA number and said it wasn't a problem as I couldn't test the drive.
    I hope this helps...G/L
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