Help please...

skye

Hi all,

Quick question - I have an Iqon desktop which has just crashed on me - asking me for the disc - problem is I lent it to my sister-in-law who has gone and lost the darn thing......Can I put any disc in as long as it's Windows XP? Will I loose everything in there or will it be recoverable? Any help appreciated.

exactiv

can you be more specific? At what stage is it asking for the disc? and is it asking for a windows disc or an iqon recovery disc?

skye

When I turn it on it won't boot... tries and then stops - then asks me to insert the disc - says Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter.

hopeful

skye wrote:

When I turn it on it won't boot... tries and then stops - then asks me to insert the disc - says Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter.

I hate to be the bearer of possible bad news but that error message is often the sign of the hard drive being unsuable. Has it been making any clicking type noises?

skye

No not that I've noticed...just won't start and then asks for the disk...so if I put in any Windows XP disk will this work? Or am I in trouble here - lots of stuff in there that I seriously need to get at...

EX_DJay

You have to format hard dick drivers

skye

And how do I do that?

andy1249

Try this , get an Xp disk , put it in the CD/DVD drive , have the computer boot from this drive and continue until you get to a screen which lists all the partitions on your HD.
There will be an option to install on this partition , delete this partition , or repair this partition ,
Choose repair this partition , now to do this you will need the serial # of the XP disk in the drive , ( not the one already installed , the serial # must match the disk in the drive ) ,
This should fix most problems with XP installations , of course if the drive is failing then this wont work, but give it a shot , I have fixed loads of installs with this. If it works then all your data will be safe , it just fixes XP is all.

chopster

EX_DJay wrote:

You have to format hard dick drivers

skye

andy1249 wrote:

Try this , get an Xp disk , put it in the CD/DVD drive , have the computer boot from this drive and continue until you get to a screen which lists all the partitions on your HD.
There will be an option to install on this partition , delete this partition , or repair this partition ,
Choose repair this partition , now to do this you will need the serial # of the XP disk in the drive , ( not the one already installed , the serial # must match the disk in the drive ) ,
This should fix most problems with XP installations , of course if the drive is failing then this wont work, but give it a shot , I have fixed loads of installs with this. If it works then all your data will be safe , it just fixes XP is all.

Just tried this and it is now telling me that no hard drive has been detected and won't continue the process bringing me right back to the start...Is it totally fooked? Is there anything else I can try?

andy1249

Damn , thats the worst that could have happened , it looks like the hard drive is crashing alright , before you give it the last rights though , open up the case and check the cables are connected properly , if they are then Im afraid its new drive time.

skye

Have just taken off the cover and can't see anything odd but then again I don't know what I am looking at!! So that's not helpful......can anyone recommend someone to come and check it out for me?

exactiv

Do you know how to get into the BIOS of your computer? It's usually by hitting Del or F1 when you turn the computer on. If you can get in there check if your HDD is being detected. Post back here if you make progress.

If not.... well..... if you don't know what your looking at inside, I'd say it's time to bring it to someone.

skye

Ok, this is what I am seeing:

Advanced BIOS features:
First Boot device [LAN]
Second Boot device [HDD-0]
Third Boot device [CDROM]
Boot up floppy seek [DISABLED]
Password check [Setup]
Limit CPUID Max. to 3 [ENABLED]

Standard CMOS Features:
IDE primary master [NONE]
IDE primary slave [NONE]
IDE secondary master [PHILIPS DVDRW416]
IDE secondary slave [NONE]

Makes no sense to me but can you help me? Is it there or time to call in someone?

andy1249

OK What this means is that the Bios sees no hard drive at all ,the only drive it sees is the DVD RW , on the second list , this may be good news in that the cable may just be loose or may be bad news in that the drive may have failed completely ,
The only way to know for sure is to have someone look inside the case and make sure that the ribbon cable is connected to both the hard drive and the motherboard and that the power cable is connected also.

If one of em is loose , then reconnect and hopefully the problem is sorted , if not , then its new hard drive time.

skye

When I look inside I can see a white ribbon cable and this has a connection bit on it which is just hanging loose....could this be my problem? If so how do I find where it should be connected to? Seems to be a few connection ends just hanging there...maybe could post some pictures tommorow if this would help?

bishopLEN

Hi,

Before doing this pull up your sleves and touch the copper of a radiator.
The cable you plug out can only go in one way.

There is a flat cable plugged into the back of the cd/dvd drive. You should see that either:
1. that cable is also connected to another cd/dvd drive
2. that cable is also connected to the hard drive
3. that there is another cable same width cable plugged into the hard drive.

Once you have identified the hard drive take account of what goes where and plug the two cables plugged into the hard drive out. The small one needs a wiggle.
Plug them back in firmly.
Now the flat cable that you plugged back in, trace it back to where it connects to the circuit board, plug it out and plug it back in firmly.

exactiv

ok. here's what you should do. unplug the wide flat cable (ribbon cable) from the back of the dvd/cd drive. find the same cable that goes into the back of the hard drive (not the floppy, make sure). check that it's secure in the back of the hard drive and the other end is secure in the mainboard (don't push the connection at the mainboard end too hard as you might damage it). if all is secure, go back into the bios to the same screen as you detailed above. use the arrow keys to highlight IDE PRIMARY MASTER - None. Press enter, it should attempt to auto detect the hard drive. If nothing appears where it used to say IDE PRIMARY MASTER - None (might say something like "Samsung 834987 etc etc") then you might be in trouble.

You could also try plugging the cable that was in the back of the DVD/CD drive into the HDD and see it it auto detects the HDD instead. if all this doesn't work I'd be willing to give you a hand over the phone in the morning if you'd like. A photo of the cable going into the back of the hard drive could help as well.

skye

OK exactiv, will try this in the morning ( had a few bevvies and best to try with a clear head me thinks!! ) Will post up the piccies of what I can see and see where I can go from there....Thanks for the offer of the talk through - really appreciate that and think it might be needed...will be on again tomorrow morning - will give you a shout if you are around - thanks again.

exactiv

no problem. just get a pic of the back of the hdd and we can take it from there

skye

Ok as promised here are the piccies - hope these are clear enough to see what's going on....

exactiv

ok. the ribbon cable that's coming out of the cd/dvd. unplug it.

unplug the cable out of the back of the HDD as well.

make sure you keep track of which is which.

Plug the ribbon cable from the cd/dvd into the back of the hdd. leave the cd/dvd plugged out. turn on the computer. go into the bios. check to see if the HDD has been detected as Secondary Master.

skye

Ok done that and all are coming up as [NONE]....

andy1249

OK , now do the same thing with the power cables , thats the one with the four wires going into it , take the one thats in the hard drive out , swap with the one in the CD/DVD and try again , see if the Bios reports anything this time.
These will be tight , so they will need a bit of a wiggle.

skye

Sorry being stupid here but do you mean the white ended cable in pic 4 above? If so can't see where the connection is on the hard drive....none of them are the same size as this and the wires are leading inside the box at the top left which I cant get at...

exactiv

in picture 1, the cable on the right hand side with 4 wires going into a white plug. that's the power cable. unplug the white plug (molex connector) from the back of the hdd (don't pull the wires out individually!). plug in the power cable from the CD/DVD into the hdd. see what comes up in the bios. if it's all "none" again then I'd say the hdd is dead. if you can get your hands on another hdd to see if it appears in the bios do that. after that I'd say you'll be heading down the road of replacing parts.

skye

Ok done and again coming up as [NONE]....shagged then eh? What do I need to do now then? Bring it somewhere, get someone in? If so can you make any recommendations? Have I now lost everything in there? Please say no cos if I have I will cry...seriously need to access some stuff in there....

exactiv

well, the bios is not detecting the hdd. so either the hdd is dead of the mainboard is dodgy. by the sounds of it though, the hdd is dead. and if so, the chances of getting stuff off of the hdd are fairly slim.

if you bring it to someone (I'm not from your end of the country, so I can't recommend anyone) make sure they try the hdd in another machine. if the other machine can't detect it then it's defo dead. you could bring the hdd to a data recovery specialist, but they are expensive (at least they were a few years ago when I had to use them).

that's about it I'm afraid. if you were in cork at any stage I'd have a look at it for you.

exactiv

http://www.datarecovery.ie/services.htm

Just did a search for "data recovery ireland" and these lads popped up. might be able to sort it for you.

exactiv

actually, one last question about the hdd, is it spinning up? like, when you power up the computer does the hdd make noise? is there any clicking out of it?

skye

It starts to spin as normal but then doesn't go any further. No clicking noises at all....Thanks for the above link - will see how I go. Thanks also for all the help - really appreciate it - won't be in Cork in the near future - but cheers for the offer.....you're a wee star!!

exactiv

well, no clicking noises is good cos it means the needle isn't scratching the surface of the disk. the control board is probably fecked. with some hard drives, if you have a similar hard drive you can swap the control board (the green pcb underneath the drive) to the broken hdd and sometimes get it working again. long enough to get the data off anyway.

let me know how you get on anyway

skye

Will do - thanks again!!