Hard Disc Drive Failure on Old Dell Help Needed

Elmo · 09-08-2006 7:17am #1

I cannot boot up my old PC. It's windows '95.

Error Message

No Boot device Available.

I also had a hard drive failure Error Message.

Is there anything to save the information on the disc?

irlrobins · 09-08-2006 7:22am

Attach it to another Pc (either internally or using an external caddy), then copy data off.

Or you can use Knoppix Live CD to boot PC and then try and access the HD.

If HD has completely failed it will be very difficult to retrieve data.

Keyzer · 09-08-2006 7:41am

Don't panic, this guy was in a worse situation -

http://www.deadharddrive.com/

Amazing perseverance...

kmb · 09-08-2006 7:43am

Swop the hard drive cable with the cd rom cable and try it.Ifstill not working then go to bios and try to refind the hard drive under detection.

REgards,
Kieran

Elmo · 09-08-2006 8:16am

I think I should have read the last post first before connecting the Hard Drive to the new computer.

Did connect the old hard drive to the new computer Internally using the CD-ROM drive connection.

Power was supplied to the hard drive. Computer turned on but could not find the old hard drive in My Computer.

Is this where I should now use BIOS to detect it?

Ruu_Old · 09-08-2006 8:22am

Look at the rear of the hard drive and you'll see little jumper pins. Have them set to Master (or Slave if theres anything else on the cable), there is probably a diagram on the hard drive itself (otherwise you will see the marking MA where the pin should be). You might have to use BIOS to detect it manually.

TempestSabre · 09-08-2006 8:36am

How important is the data?

If the IDE controller is gone on the motherboard then switching to the other one (where the CDROM is) makes sense. However if you can see the CDROM on the controller that the HD was orignally connected to then theres nothing wrong with the controller, and the problem is with the HD itself.

Do some digging around on the web and 2nd computer recyclers and see if you can find an identical drive. Swapping the controller board (as in that link) on the drive might work. It did for me in the past, but I'd bought a couple of identical drives so I didn't have to go find one. I could see a blown circuit on the HD controller too.

Elmo · 09-08-2006 8:47am

Thanks for all the help.

The HD is old so I don't think I will find one for it too soon

Can I access the BIOS now? or will I have to reboot the system?

The device is Unknown to the system, from what I can gather from the BIOS.

TempestSabre · 09-08-2006 8:51am

If its the drive that came with the machine its probably as common as muck, and 2nd hand PC stores will have a stack of them. I was on a job where we upgraded about 2000 PC's, chucking out the old ones. We removed the HD's from them all, and I'd say there was only about 10 types of drives max across about 3 brands.

Bit late saying this now, sorry, but you should have taken down the bios settings of the drive when it was connected to the original IDE channel. You can access the bios now. Older machines didn't auto detect the HD settings.

Elmo · 09-08-2006 8:59am

Get the orginal IDE from the orginal PC's BIOS?

and sorry for my ignorance (the B. Sc. in IT really has done me well :rolleyes: ) but how do I get to the BIOS on the new PC now?

Ruu_Old · 09-08-2006 9:10am

It will tell you on the bootup screen, Elmo and its different with most computers. Some say "Press DEL key to enter Setup", etc.

TempestSabre · 09-08-2006 9:54am

F2 is another.

PogMoThoin · 09-08-2006 10:06am

TempestSabre wrote:

F2 is another.

:rolleyes: Dells are all f2

Elmo · 09-08-2006 10:07am

No I had got that far, thanks.

Will just have to bring the disk to someone.

Thanks

TempestSabre · 09-08-2006 10:16am

PogMoThoin wrote:

:rolleyes: Dells are all f2

Whats with the roll eyes?

1) I was the first person to say F2
2) The old machine is a Dell. He never said what the new machine was.

Dells are F2 because they are generally all intel boards and intel generally use F2. That said I've seen Dells that used other keys, but they were early runs of machines like, P60/P66's and 1.4 P4's etc.

ScumLord · 09-08-2006 11:39am

Is the hard drive making any high pitched noises? If so it's rightly ****ed. You can send it to a company in England but they charge around £600 to get the data off it.

gamer · 09-08-2006 4:06pm

is data very important,valuable ,you can leave hd set as master,put it on end,of 2nd secondary, ide cable,in another pc,that has ide drive cables,on most pcs, set bios,autodetect all drives,usually dvds.cdroms are on secondary cable.BE very gentle,if data,s very important call computer doctor,in golden.pages,look at computerdoctor.ie,or other companys in phone book pc repair,comdoctor,are cheapest company,as far as i know.IF you handle pc,take antistatic precautions,be very gentle,any knocks will crash the drive heads,destroy the data.NO point in installing it in pc with sata drive cables,most pcs uptil,2005 are ide drive cable ennabled,unless its a home built pc.knock off both pcs ,take out plugs from esb sockets,be4 going near,or opening any pcs .put drive in antistatic bag/cover,do not touch hd pcb.IF YOU can get it working as drive d,e, copy all data, to new folder,eg hardrive old.Set folder options show all files/hidden files,use xcopy commands in dos mode if you know dos well.

Hard Disc Drive Failure on Old Dell Help Needed

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