Hard Drive Dead?

Overheal

So im not sure. It happened right at close but ill have to deal with this in the morning.

Our Vista PC was running at the end of the circuit. It had an Uninterruptable Power Supply, a Widescreen monitor and a Printer. When the printer turns on the UPS throws a fit. It was always a shoddy setup. But you could play WoW and things on it.

Fast forward to today. First time in a long time I decide to play wow. The twist, I brought over a pair of Logitech speakers, which I plugged into the UPS. So about 20 minutes into gameplay, _____________

The entire setup just. Died. Monitor, UPS, Printer, Speakers. All dead. I wondered if I hit the Power Button on the UPS. So I waited a second, and this fired up fine. The Printer warmed up, the monitor came on, the speakers ran fine (but I opted to shut them off). And I booted the Computer.

But heres the problem. I got the POST screen, I got diagnostics (memory and CPU appear fine) but it cant find the Master drive. Theres nothing to boot to.

So naturally I have to go in tomorrow with a boot disk and see whats what, but im concerned that the Harddrive is fried.

Question being, is there another possible explanation?

Effluo

Overheal wrote: »

Question being, is there another possible explanation?

You might have got such a fright that you kicked the cpu and bang a cable?

Seriously though, you kind of answered the question in your post. Everything else appears to be fine!
Unless the motherboards sata controller just happened to crap out... Pretty unlikely though i guess?

Overheal

Yeah I hate knowing stuff but the SATA controller, not something I would have considered. Its probably worth trying to boot it in one of our other towers though for a quick check. downloading UBCD now.

Effluo

Overheal wrote: »

Yeah I hate knowing stuff but the SATA controller, not something I would have considered.

Yeah that was just a supposition, can they actually fail?

Anti

Do the normal troubleshooting in the morning, ive got a feeling if you clear the cmos all will be fine again

Effluo

Actually, why not! lol

Overheal

clear the CMOS, that was a bust. reseated the Hard Drive, nothing yet. And UBCD is kinda worthless if you cant get into the hard disk, but i get a feeling its physically fine aside from, well, being fried potentially. When im done running diagnostics ill swap its power rail with another.

Overheal

The hard drive is spooling up but the PC is still not detecting it. "Error Auto--Sensing/Detecting" so its having a problem communicating with the Hard Drive.

Effluo

Overheal wrote: »

The hard drive is spooling up but the PC is still not detecting it. "Error Auto--Sensing/Detecting" so its having a problem communicating with the Hard Drive.

is your dvd drive being recognised?

Webmonkey

Overheal wrote: »

The hard drive is spooling up but the PC is still not detecting it. "Error Auto--Sensing/Detecting" so its having a problem communicating with the Hard Drive.

Did you try changing SATA connectors? - also maybe trying it in another PC.


Well if it is in fact the HDD thats screwed, what I'd do is get a similar hard drive and take the circuit board off and put it on this one...Might do the trick. Never done it before however.

Overheal

Effluo wrote: »

is your dvd drive being recognised?

yes. and UBCD just finished burning, so ill give that a lash.

Did you try changing SATA connectors? - also maybe trying it in another PC.


Well if it is in fact the HDD thats screwed, what I'd do is get a similar hard drive and take the circuit board off and put it on this one...Might do the trick. Never done it before however.

Yes I tried running the CD-Drives SATA connector with no joy.

That circuit board swap sounds very macguyver and, not my first choice.

Webmonkey

Overheal wrote: »

That circuit board swap sounds very macguyver and, not my first choice.

Of course - I mean as a last resort unless you want pros to recover.

Just noticed you tried CD drive with sata connector so I guess the mainboard and controllers some how screwed up? Very strange one. Guess the HDD is ok so.

Overheal

UBCD is a bust. None of the tools can find the hard disk either. But ive just noted that the Service period for this PC doesnt expire for another 2 years, so its Dells problem Now