New Hard Drive

S

songsj

Member
Guys I have an older Gateway 832GM Pentium 4 that is a workhorse. It is not my main machine anymore but I use it for burning Cd's email, some storage, that kind of stuff. All of a sudden when I went to wake it up from being asleep it did not wake up, Nothing, black screen,not even a curser on black screen. Power light is on, fan runs CD and DVD drives work, nothing on screen. I'm wondering if it is the hard drive and if I install a new one for a whole 28.00, will the restore discs I burned when the machine was new have the whole XP operating system on it and will they transfer to the new hard drive? I know most would just scrap this machine but if I can get it running for 28.00 it is worth it to me. Also If it is the hard drive should I be able to boot the machine at least to the BIOS section with a dead hard drive. I am getting nothing. Afraid it's the motherboard which would make the machine toast.
 
Gateway, wow that is a pretty old machine. I think those guys have been out of business for at least 15 years. HD might not be spinning. You might want to turn it on and tap the HD to get it to spin. I use to do that with some IBM PS2 HD's.

If you do get it to work, and you want to keep the files, I suggest you put the HD in another computer and grab the files. Looks like it is going to the great digital heaven.
 
songsj said:
Also If it is the hard drive should I be able to boot the machine at least to the BIOS section with a dead hard drive. I am getting nothing. Afraid it's the motherboard which would make the machine toast.
Click to expand...

I'd go with Gecko's suggestion first; Make sure your screen hasn't failed by testing it with another computer, or testing another screen with your p4 computer.
Capacitor failure in the power supplies of LCD screens is very common after so many years of use.
The symptoms are usually failure to start, from cold, but the screen works perfectly once it starts, if it starts.

Usually, as you say, hard drive failure would result in failure to boot but shouldn't prevent you from getting screen output.
If the hard drive failed I'd expect the machine to have BSOD or frozen, and I'd expect it to boot to bios and give you some boot failure message.
For those reasons I'm doubting hard drive failure. The machine should have told you if that was the case.

If you prove the screen to be fine I'd be looking for a second machine of similar age to start part-swapping.
Ram first, then GPU if it's discrete.
If you have multiple sticks of ram but don't have access to the same type from another machine, you can try removing all but one then try to boot.
If that fails, try booting with a different stick but, again, only one.

Also, less likely to give a result but it's worth opening the case and ensuring that all power and data cables are firmly connected.

Some of these things only apply if you're comfortable poking inside a computer, of course. If you're not comfortable/experienced, don't do it. :)
 
Monitor is good, tested with another computer feels like hard drive is spinning, cannot get it to boot even to the bios screen, Maybe bad ram or motherboard?

---------- Update ----------

Could not get it to start with recovery disc either.
 
songsj said:
Just took the ram out 1 stick at a time no go.
Click to expand...

When you get down to the last stick, take it out and put one of the others back in.
Long shot, but worth ruling out as much as possible. :)


After that, the screen is 100% tested as working, and ram is unlikely to be the issue...
Is the graphics card built into the motherboard or discrete?

If it's discrete and you have another suitable card, from another computer, that you can swap with for testing, try that,
or if it's discrete but your motherboard happens to have built in VGA/DVI output, try the built in.

Also, if the GPU is discrete and it has power cables, make sure they're seated properly and haven't come loose.

If the GPU is onboard, are there two ports? Some computers back then had VGA + DVI, sometimes on an auxiliary PCI-E card?
Basically if you have the option to swap anything, try that. :P


With lights and fans and evidence of power, I would doubt the PSU or motherboard being faulty.
Never say never, but I'd be looking at everything else first.

My troubleshooting would go like this, in order.
Connections inside computer - Screen - Cables - Ram - GPU (if possible) - CPU.

How much of this you're able to test and check depends on what you have available to you, and how tech-handy you are.

I mean, you could literally pick up a newer faster machine at the amenity site; I get that,
but I also get that it's a pain setting up a working environment from scratch. I like to fix things if I can. :)

As I say, even with a dead drive the computer should boot and throw you an error but, if it's convenient, I guess you could pull the power connector at the hard drive and try to boot.
Super long shot but, as always, worth ruling anything and everything out.

Edit: I guess you would have mentioned it but did anything happen before it died?
Did it take a bang or a knock, or was there a power cut, or...anything out of the ordinary?
 
Generally the HDD should have a light that indicates actual read/write activity, even on an old system like that. if it's spinning but no activity, then something is stuck in the boot up process. Check cables everywhere, maybe even throw a buck at a new CMOS battery, I dunno. WD-40?
 
Checked the ram thing new cmos battery,actually changed it a week ago and everything worked fine.Then this. of course I thought like most of you will I must have done something, It worked fine for a week.
I've checked inside for loose cables disconnected the hard drive and tried to boot, cant see anything that looks burnt or overheated on any of the boards inside,Tried booting from F11 F10 F8 F2 nothing. The machine was on had been asleep for a day and would not wake up, tried different mouse etc, I guess I did not try a new keyboard that's a stretch. If nothing else I would have thought it would boot from the recovery disc, nope. Graphics are integrated. I also tried putting a music cd in the drive because it automatically opens in windows and plays, Nothing, I figured if it was graphics the cd still would have played maybe not. I was looking and for 200 bucks I can get a refurbished machine with better processing, Windows 7 pro 32 bit so I can use all my 32 bit software, might be a better way to go. Hate to kiss this one goodbye but maybe its time.
 
If you have an original XP CD rom you can boot from the cd drive by holding the c key on start up.
 
songsj said:
Checked the ram thing new cmos battery,actually changed it a week ago and everything worked fine.Then this. of course I thought like most of you will I must have done something, It worked fine for a week.
I've checked inside for loose cables disconnected the hard drive and tried to boot, cant see anything that looks burnt or overheated on any of the boards inside,Tried booting from F11 F10 F8 F2 nothing. The machine was on had been asleep for a day and would not wake up, tried different mouse etc, I guess I did not try a new keyboard that's a stretch. If nothing else I would have thought it would boot from the recovery disc, nope. Graphics are integrated. I also tried putting a music cd in the drive because it automatically opens in windows and plays, Nothing, I figured if it was graphics the cd still would have played maybe not. I was looking and for 200 bucks I can get a refurbished machine with better processing, Windows 7 pro 32 bit so I can use all my 32 bit software, might be a better way to go. Hate to kiss this one goodbye but maybe its time.
Click to expand...

Sounds like maybe it's beyond home-troubleshooting then. :(
If you wanted one last punt, since you're looking at a new machine anyway, you could try removing anything that's not necessary.
Unplug all hard drives, cd/dvd drives, additional pci cards, and external peripheral.

Unlikely to give a result but what's the harm.

If you go with a new PC you should be able to pull the hard drive from the old one and rig it up as a slave in the new one.
I wouldn't bother trying to boot from it but, at least, you should be able to get access to any documents or important files you might have had.
 
I'd even go as far as pulling the hard drive just to see if the BIOS boots and reports the lack of an OS. If the power supply has more than one spare plug I'd swap those around, i.e., just to get a different one to the motherboard, as well. The lack of any screen activity suggests the motherboard, or at least its chipset/CPU is toast, if it's getting powered properly.

Yeah, if you can find an external case/carrier for that drive to test that it's really readable that would be worth doing. Just make sure you get one for the drive controller technology.
 
I have adapters to pull data off of hard drives from crashed MBs. They arent expensive. I remembered an old Packard Bell 80486 i had died and inspection found the battery had leaked and damaged the MB. I know you said nothing visible but sometimes the problems are only visible on the other side of the board. Also some boards are actually a sandwich of board, conductor,board and they can get unfixable issues. A qualified tech can fix just about anything other than that, but the cost to value ratio is probably not good. Get one of the drive adapters (i have this one AGPtek SATA/PATA/IDE Drive to USB 2.0 Adapter Converter Cable for Hard Drive Disk HDD 2.5" 3.5", Compatible with USB 1.1/2.0/3.0, With External AC Power Adapter Included
 
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