Hard Drive Problem

Been-InsaneBeen-Insane
edited January 2008 in Hardware
Hi,
I was searching the internet for the problem im having and found this forum, i'm in desperate need of help so hope you dont mind me posting here.
Last night I was using my computer and one of my cats stood on the switch on the surge protecter extension that everything for the computer is plugged into. Well that killed the power to the PC so I flicked the switch back on and loaded the pc back up.

When it loaded I get a message after the emachines splash screen saying operating system not found. That didn't sound good so I got out my recovery disk that came with the computer and put it in. It loaded up the cd drives in dos and gave me the options to restore win xp or go to a dos promt. I picked to restore XP and then it told me that I would have to format my hard disk drive first. I didn't want to do that at all so I restarted the pc again and checked out the dos promt part. I couldn't get to C:\ to see why the operating system may be gone and so I tried FDISK. I got the message, No Fixed disk present. So I load up the BIOS and sure enough the hard drive isn't on there anymore.

So i'm not really sure what to do now. The hard drive was working fine prior to the power off and I never had the BSOD or anything like that. I have opened up the case and checked all the connectors and they are all plugged in fine. The hard drive IS spinning when the computer is put on and there are no clicks or any strange noises its going the way it always has.

So basically there you have it. I have a lot of photos that I really need to get off the drive so any help to get it working even just once would be appreciated (Freezing it is a last last resort! :cool:) I just really need to get the pictures off :sad2:.

Please any help and advice you can give at all will be so much appreciated and if there are any questions that I can answer to help please just ask.
Thanks for reading this far.

By the way the hard drive is a Western Digital WD800 Prestige if that makes any difference.
Thanks again.

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited January 2008
    Sounds like somehow your bios got screwed up. Go into your bios settings and look for your devices and make sure that it's set to auto detect all your drives. Then see if your bios is detecting your harddrive. If not you may have to reset your bios. To do that there should be a 3 paired jumper on your mobo, hopefully it's labeled. To reset it you move the jumper to the pairs that it's currently not on. Turn the computer on, let it boot up to the bios, turn it off then move the jumper back and reboot.
  • Been-InsaneBeen-Insane
    edited January 2008
    kryyst wrote:
    Sounds like somehow your bios got screwed up. Go into your bios settings and look for your devices and make sure that it's set to auto detect all your drives. Then see if your bios is detecting your harddrive. If not you may have to reset your bios. To do that there should be a 3 paired jumper on your mobo, hopefully it's labeled. To reset it you move the jumper to the pairs that it's currently not on. Turn the computer on, let it boot up to the bios, turn it off then move the jumper back and reboot.

    Hi,
    Thanks for the reply.

    Before I got your reply I tried putting the comp on again and I went straight into the Bios, the hard drive was visable there but when I left the Bios i was greeted with a blinking cursor in the top corner of the screen and nothing else happened. So I restared and the drive was still in the bios but the same thing happened. I had to take the hard drive out to fix it back into the pc properly and then when I done that it stopped showing in the Bios again :S

    I then got your reply, I havent had to mess with the jumpers before so I had a look in and yeah there are six little coloums of three pins and two of these in each row have caps on, I dont think im explaining this too well but its something like this
    0 0 0 0 0 I
    I I I I I I
    I I I I I 0

    so i moved the last cap down to cover the bottom and middle pin and loaded up the comp and now im getting this.

    Phoenix Bios 4.0 Release 6.0
    Copywrite phoenix tech
    Version 1.02

    245M System Ram Passed
    128K cached SRAM Passed
    System BIOS Shadowed
    Video Bios Shadowed
    ATAPI CDROM: JLMS XJ HD166S
    ATAPI CDROM: HL-DT-ST GCE 8483B
    Mouse Iniialized
    System Configuration Date updated
    ERROR
    0271: Check date and time settings
    ERROR
    0251: System CMOS Checksum bad - Default config used

    Press DEL to setup f1 to resume

    have I done something wrong here?
    any more help is appreciated.

    Thanks for the infor so far!
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited January 2008
    No you reset the bios. No turn it off put the jumper back and reboot. Then go into your bios choose the default settings and see if it's detecting your drives correctly.

    Also if it's a SATA drive make sure you have the correct settings in your bios.
  • Been-InsaneBeen-Insane
    edited January 2008
    kryyst wrote:
    No you reset the bios. No turn it off put the jumper back and reboot. Then go into your bios choose the default settings and see if it's detecting your drives correctly.

    Also if it's a SATA drive make sure you have the correct settings in your bios.

    Sorry in the delay in replying, I havent been able to get to a pc.

    Anyway, I had to get a new hard drive for the PC (It was under warrenty still so they just sent a new one out) which was recognised by the BIOS straight away and is now up and running. So I assume this means its a problem with the HD itself.

    The strange thing is there were no error messages or slowdown leading up to this and the disc is spinning the way it always has so I dont really understand whats up with it.

    I have tried the old drive set as the slave but when I do thatim getting the operating system not found error again. The jumper for the new drive is set on cable select (Obviously with the master cable going into that) and using this diagram ( http://support.wdc.com/images/drives/jumpers/jumpers.gif ( its the ten pin drive ) ) have set my old drive to slave (ive also tried cable select) but with the old drive in the system just wont start. I just keep on getting the operating system not found error.

    If anyone has any ideas on what could be up with this please let me know because im really unsure what to do. Even if I can only get the old drive working once just to copy some of the old files I want off it then that will be more than good enough.

    Thanks for all your help so far and any more you can give is appreciated.

    Thanks again

    Also just to add when I have the old drive plugged in neither of the drives are seen in the Bios but as soon as I take the old one out the new one is there?!

    EDIT 2: Ok after a little playing around in the BIOS this is what happens.
    If I just have the new drive in the computer Boots fine

    If I have the old drive in and get it detected in the Bios the computer boots past the first splash logo (the big emachines logo) but then just hangs on a blinking cursor.

    If I set the new drive as the master and the old drive as the slave and manage to get them both detected in the bios then the computer will either hang on a blank screen after the splash logo or I will get a list of details of my computer loading up and at the bottom the error 0200: Fixeddisk1 Fail (its something like that)

    If I boot with the old drive as the master and the new as the slave and manage to get them detected then I just get a blank screen after the splash logo.

    Its getting confusing now, obviously the old disk is working but theres something wrong somewhere? any help is much appreciated!
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    If I have the old drive in and get it detected in the Bios the computer boots past the first splash logo (the big emachines logo) but then just hangs on a blinking cursor.
    90% bet: when the power was abruptly shut off by your jokester cat, your hard drive was writing to the disk; the abrupt shut off probably caused the drive to scramble (corrupt) some critical startup files. I believe your drive is probably in good shape physically, just needing a files repair.
  • Been-InsaneBeen-Insane
    edited January 2008
    Leonardo wrote:
    90% bet: when the power was abruptly shut off by your jokester cat, your hard drive was writing to the disk; the abrupt shut off probably caused the drive to scramble (corrupt) some critical startup files. I believe your drive is probably in good shape physically, just needing a files repair.

    That sounds like good news to me :)

    Any idea how I would go about repairing those files? Would I need to make some kind of boot disk or something?

    Thanks!
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    Let's start with simplest step, which is Windows' built in Check Disk. With the 'old' drive connected to the computer (USB enclosure is just fine):

    - go to My Computer or Windows Explorer, highlight the symbol of the old drive (do this for each partition if more than one)
    - right click
    - select Properties
    - select the Tools tab
    - click the Check Now button (top selection)
    - tick both boxes and select OK

    Try it and get back with us when completed.
  • Been-InsaneBeen-Insane
    edited January 2008
    Leonardo wrote:
    Let's start with simplest step, which is Windows' built in Check Disk. With the 'old' drive connected to the computer (USB enclosure is just fine):

    - go to My Computer or Windows Explorer, highlight the symbol of the old drive (do this for each partition if more than one)
    - right click
    - select Properties
    - select the Tools tab
    - click the Check Now button (top selection)
    - tick both boxes and select OK

    Try it and get back with us when completed.

    The problem with that is I dont have a USB enclosure and if I try and connect the old drive and the new drive at the same time the computer wont boot, I can't seem to find a way to get onto the computer with the old drive attatched :confused:
  • Been-InsaneBeen-Insane
    edited January 2008
    Just a quick update.

    I have managed to get both drives showing in the BIOS (New one master, old one slave) and get windows XP running off the old drive but once im in the OS the old drive isn't being shown anywhere so im not sure where to go from there.
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    start menu -> right click on my computer -> manage
    Click down on Disk Management in the window that opens. Does your slave HDD show up there?
  • Been-InsaneBeen-Insane
    edited January 2008
    MJancaitis wrote:
    start menu -> right click on my computer -> manage
    Click down on Disk Management in the window that opens. Does your slave HDD show up there?

    Nope :-/. When the pc loads with both drives in (and detected in the BIOS) it hangs on a black screen for a minute and then I get the windows XP loading screen. It seems somewhere between the drive being detected and the actual OS running it dissapears :-/
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    And you're sure your jumper settings for both drives are correct, as well as their position on the IDE cable?
  • Been-InsaneBeen-Insane
    edited January 2008
    MJancaitis wrote:
    And you're sure your jumper settings for both drives are correct, as well as their position on the IDE cable?

    Yeah im pretty sure, the IDE cable is clearly labled and the jumpers are both in the cable select position. I just followed the diagram from the Western Digital site for my old drive and the details for where to put the jumper on the new drive are labled on it. I must be going wrong somewhere though.:confused:
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    do you have another ID cable you could try? Sometimes a cable that appears to be in perfect physical condition will be bad and can cause anomalies.
  • Been-InsaneBeen-Insane
    edited January 2008
    Leonardo wrote:
    do you have another ID cable you could try? Sometimes a cable that appears to be in perfect physical condition will be bad and can cause anomalies.

    I dont have one but I could try and get one, I would try the drive on a different machine but all I have access to is a laptop. Would the cable going into the dvd drive be ok to try or would I need to get another one.

    I'm starting to think that the best way to go though would be to try and get a HD usb enclosure so I can get into windows with it. If I was to manage to get one would this also need to be found in the BIOS or could I just plug and play like usual USB devices?

    Thanks for all the help you've all given so far!
  • SnarkasmSnarkasm Madison, WI Icrontian
    edited January 2008
    A HDD in a USB enclosure is just straight plug-n-play. It's never a bad thing to have, either. A while back an external of mine died on me, so I just cannibalized the innards, and I use it for literally everything HDD-related - rescuing "dead" drives, taking stuff off of laptop drives, even just turning a regular drive into a portable for a few minutes.
  • Been-InsaneBeen-Insane
    edited January 2008
    Yeah I think i'll try that. I've found a HD enclosure for pretty cheap so i'll just have to wait for it to come and hope that works. I don't really want to keep messing with the old drive in case it is on it's way out so i'll leave it alone untill I get the enclosure and hope I can get the things I need off it.

    Thanks for all the help you've all given. I shall let you know what happens!
    Thanks again.
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