Help!

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Sayers
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John Sayers

John Sayers

Solar Power!!
This morning the little voice in my puter said as I was booting up "you may have a problem with your hard drive" and yup I did. It wouldn't show and the CDROM hanging off it wouldn't register unless I removed it from the chain. So I'm down a HD at mo :mad:

If checked and rchecked the cables and connections but no joy,
is there anything else I can do???

cheers
John
 
Thing with computers errors and asking for advice, you really gotta say what the *exact* error message was. Interpetations always leads to wrong advice.

..also, I need to know, what kinda computer.. I ass-u-me a PC.

How many drives.. is it SCSI, IDE?

for now, best thing you can do (if you have a motherboard capable of HD autodetect) is plug in the sole hard drive alone, turn on the computer and see if

1. The hard drive starts to spin - feel it, listen to it.. dont open it :)
that means power is getting to it.

2. is it making any weird noises as it starts up? I should be fairly quiet

3. Is it being detected at boot up on your bios screen? yes? great.. no? try on a different channel.. (primary/secondary).. try different settings (master/slave - for scsi , ID 0 to 7).. Try a new cable.

if it doesnt detect... check on the drive, see how old it is, if its 3 years or younger... call the manufacture up and tell em your gonna claim your 3 year warranty

if it does, chances are it works, reformat it or something and try it again...

Hope this helps.
 
I can tell you what NOT to do.... do NOT tap on it!

I just got done telling a client that I can not recover their data because they crashed their disk by "tapping" on it.

Good luck.

C
 
Clark_Griswold said:
I can tell you what NOT to do.... do NOT tap on it!

I just got done telling a client that I can not recover their data because they crashed their disk by "tapping" on it.

Good luck.

C
Click to expand...

Yeah, No tapping.....

Throwing the unit across the room works better! :D
 
Give more detail and I'm sure we can help. Or at least confirm that you need a new one :P
 
Well, I wouldnt go that far... tapping that is. I mean, as long as your not tap dancing on it, it should be able to handle some shock.

Most drives, especially the newer ones can withstand *up to* 30Gs of force while running without an error. Thats quite a bit.

If they're not running, they can withstand as high as 300Gs of force.

Granted I never tested those limits cause... well... I'm sure the warranty department wouldn't be to forgiving..

...though, I have treated a running drive that was sitting on a table which was connected to a mobo sitting on a table as a hi-hat with my pen before (lovely run-on there) without any problems.. (I was bored.. It wasn't mine)

Bascially, don't scare the guy into layin out insulated cushins (sp?) for his hard drive :P
 
Thanks for your replies - yup - more info would be a good idea.

PIII 866
380 sumthin RAM
A-Open XA34 Pro II Mobo 100 ATA
80 cable

It is my secondary drive which is why I'm still on air

It is in a removable case and when I switch it on both activity and power light come on permenantly.

If I turn it on then boot up the drive is not detected, neither is the CDROM hanging off it. If I turn it off the CDROM is detected and bootup continues without it.

hope this helps, ;)

cheers
John
 
Try bypassing the drive bracket, i.e. take the drive out of the enclosure and hook it up directly without the CD-ROM and see if it's 'seen'.

If it doesn't see it then, it 'could' be your secondary hard drive is toast. Or your BIOS decided to reset itself or that connector on the ribbon is funky or.. or...
 
John,

Since you mentioned that the activity light comes on "permanently" that could be a sign that the drive is OK and your controller is not working properly. If your controller is not integrated with the mobo, then you might be able to save the drive.

If you have a controller board that you can remove, you might want to take it out and test it on another computer.
 
Thanks Guys
Emeric - that was what I tried first but no go but what you said about the BIOS is interesting - When it first happened I went into BIOS (very tentative ;) )
and pnp was disabled, so enables it but it didn't help. I then went back and switched on off and up she came. Now it's gone again - so maybe there is a solution there?? I'm still very unsure when in BIOS :):)

Sonic Misfit - that's an idea as Kevs puterr is in the same room maybe I'll try it in there.

Thanks for all your help :D

cheers
John
 
I had the same problem and it ended up being a bad IDE cable with an intermittant short.

The cables are cheap and will save you the headache if that is the problem.
 
you wouldn't believe it - well you would - now it's going, after Emerics suggestion about BIOS I decided to reboot and try the BIOS and had my finger on delet and wow it found all drives and wooosh !! (I've been drinking Wolfe Blass Chardonay) there it was, still going!!

Here I am trying to convince Kev to use a puter for recording and he just looks at me and raises his eyebrows ;);)

cheers
John
 
You may be having bad contact somewhere, either on IDE cable or inside removable case, which are known to cause inconsistent contact problem.
 
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