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Thread: Why is my HD doing this?!

  1. #1
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    Why is my HD doing this?!

    I have no clue what is going on, I have had this happen on two systems both of which people say that haven't deleted anything on.

    On bootup, I get an error message in the top left of my screen "Missing OS" then if I try to reformat the drive or anything, it tells me there is no drive installed. This has happened on a XP home OS and a Win 98 computer. I am completely clueless it shows that there is no HD and I can't format it or partition it or recover or anything please help.



    Thanks

  2. #2
    Senior Member DeadAddict's Avatar
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    I would check the jumpers and see if they are set correctly and make sure all cables and power connectors are seated firmly and another thing to try is get in to the bios and see if the bios detects it. worst case the Hd might be dead

  3. #3
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    This blows...The most difficult part abouth this, is that this isn't my machine, so I am not sure what went on before it crashed. I was able to get into the BIOS and it showed it as if there was nothing there, but the Harddrive is maybe 4 months old. And, it was barely used.

    I think I am going to make the failed drive my secondary put a new HD in and then load an OS and see if I can get any info off the secondary (old) drive. That sound good?

  4. #4
    Senior Member DeadAddict's Avatar
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    You should be able to do that

  5. #5
    rebmeM roineS enilnOitnA steve.milner's Avatar
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    The drive may be okay, but the IDE controller on the motherboard may be fried.

    Try the drive on a different motherboard & see what happens

    Steve
    IT, e-commerce, Retail, Programme & Project Management, EPoS, Supply Chain and Logistic Services. Yorkshire. http://www.bigi.uk.com

  6. #6
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    make sure you've got the ribbion cable the right way around at both ends, some times the connectors on the cable arent keyed and are easy to get the wrong way around,

    also set the bios drive detection to auto, to get you started

    also something ive been playing with at the moment, is using knoppix for datarecovery, ive had a few HD that are corrupt or come up with various messages on booting that dont allow me acess to a prompt

    so i go to the bios only make the CD-rom drive my bootable drive and disallow all the others, then boot knoppix,

    usually the HD can be seen on the desktop and stuff can be recovereed that way,

    and then can FDISK them by going to the shell typing "sudo su" and then "cfdisk"

    thats if its knakered

    one other think to check to make sure the cable is the correct way around it to look how the cable on the CD drive is done and then copy it

    make sure no pins are bent if they are make sure the computers turned off and then bent them back with a small screwdriver

    i2c

  7. #7
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    Thanks Guys, I am still trying to get through this. All the connections are good but I am thinking if i cant boot with another HD it will be the Motherboard but I am going to continue fooling around with it, thank you all it has helped me think about other ways to do it.

    Thanks

  8. #8
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    Just a thought, but most motherboards have 2 ide slots, have you tried using the other one? I have had one go bad while the other is still working. Have you tried switching the jumpers around from master to cable select and such? Is the hard drive on it's own ide cable or sharing one with a cd rom? Other then that, I agree you should be able to hook it up as a slave drive and see what you can see...
    Ron Paul: Hope for America
    http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

  9. #9
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    br_fusion,

    You can try going to your hard drive manufacturer's website. There you will surely find an exclusive tool for your hard drive (every hard drive has a tool) with a lot of functions to use, including restore your hard drive to "factory state", erase, format, re-format, partition, etc., etc., etc.

    Here's a list of hard drive manufacturer's websites:


    HARD DISK TOOLS:

    - WESTERN DIGITAL: HERE

    - MAXTOR: HERE

    - SEAGATE: HERE

    - SAMSUNG: HERE

    - FUJITSU: HERE

    - HITACHI: HERE

    - TOSHIBA: HERE

    - IBM: HERE (supported now by Hitachi)

    - QUANTUM: HERE (supported now by Maxtor)


    CONFIGURATIONS:

    - OLD HARD DISKS: HERE


    Good luck,

    DKRR

  10. #10
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    Originally posted here by thehorse13
    If you went into the BIOS and there is nothing there under hard drives then as DeadAddict has said, the drive may be fried and also the power cable or drive cable could have come off the drive. Check your connections before you write off the drive as dead. A four month old drive shouldn't die that quickly (unless it is a Maxtor or Seagate drive ) These are about the *only* things that could be wrong here so you wont be stuck troubleshooting for weeks.
    you forgot to mention IBM they had a big batch of bad hardrives out there that where dieing left and right.
    d0m1n10n: 1.Control or the exercise of control; sovereignty: “The devil... has their souls in his possession, and under his dominion” (Jonathan Edwards).
    2. A territory or sphere of influence or control; a realm.
    often Dominion Abbr. Dom.

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