pc wont load up..

[TGWTHF]

ok so my main PC, the one i used ALL The time for gaming and everything ((even though it was weak and 4 years old)) just suddenly up and died for no reason?, it started lagging while it was booted up, then it crashed, and when it loaded up it wouldn't recognize ANY hard drive we put in it, even ones that we know are working on other computers, and still are working, so I thought it was the motherboard, I bought a new motherboard to replace it and.. nothing, the same problem... I didn't do anything to it that i don't do any other day of the week... it also wont read any disks that we put in the DVD drive to try and put windows vista back on it :/, but it wasn't having none of it, the system recognizes the dvd drive, but still wont load the disk, not even Ubunto would load on it ((and Ubunto can run without a harddrive)) so this PC well and truely has me beat, i've tried everything i could think of and nothing... my dad and sister are blaming a graphics card and power supply that i bought a month or two ago to put in it ((it was a 750 watt powersupply and a GTS250 graphics card)) but i highly doubt that they would break th e harddrive or motherboard or anything.

the powersupply can't have fried anything because we took that out when we were trying new harddrives and motherboard in it, the old one was put back in it, but this is annoying me, I needed that PC for college work and business work, but it just up and died a day before i went back to college ((The week that i have exams that require the PC too...))

can anyone try and shed some light on this situation? :/...

[Kaged]

When you say it doesn't recognise any HDD you put into it, are they showing up in the BIOS?
Have you tried the original HDD in another machine?
Have you tried another PSU & what is the one you have?
Tried different SATA cables?

Just throwing around some ideas...

[mikeo01]

Try all options as the comment above.

First try different SATA cables and make sure it is detected in the BIOS.
Set first boot priority to the DVD to force it to boot first. Have you got a spare USB?
Rule out the PSU, try all but the basic components.

What power supply is it? The brand? The GTS250 isn't very power hungry, but if its a cheap power supply that card may have overloaded it. Are you still using it? If you are use the onboard GPU for the moment, or if you haven't got onboard use your speakers for audio. May have been overloaded.

[TGWTHF]

no they aren't showing up in the bios, no because our other machines connectors aren't SATA so we cant connect it to them, we did try changing the SATA cable, because the same type of cable connect our DVD drive to the motherboard, and the dvd drive show sup in bios, we swapped the cables, and it still showed up in bios but the hard drive wasnt recognized, yes tried both the stock 350 watt PSU it came with and the 750 watt PSU that i got with the graphics card, the psu i got with the card is a Alpine power supply or something, it doesnt say what model it is on the casing, there was no box with it.

we took the GTS 250 out as soon as it crashed, it has a built in GeForce 9100 so...

my dad said "I got it to detect the drive in the bios, but it just wouldn't do anything from there," he couldn't make it so it boot priority is the DVD drive, this weird blue HP screen thing loads up all the time when you turn the PC on, giving you options for bot menu, setup, diagnostics and something else, but, you click on boot menu and it says loading, but it doesn't load at all, the other options work ((even tho sometimes they dont work either)) so we have no clue whats wrong with it... we were going to take it to our local PC shop, because they offer free diagnostics on PCs, and then if somethings wrong they'll offer to fix it for you for a price ((lol)), but if this one is well and truly effed and needs new everything, then I'll just build my gaming PC instead of repairing it.

[mikeo01]

Have you tried installed ubuntu from a USB stick instead? Run off a USB stick and see what happens.

I had an Apline PSU, they aren't good. But as you say you tried the stock PSU, sounds like something has messed up in the HDD. Can you hear it spinning? It could be the headers have got stuck somehow, if you hear screeching or no spin try tapping it on the side to release the headers (if they're stuck, don't hit too hard). Also if its failing it could mean a bad sector, so yeah if you take it to the local repair shop the person could at least tell you what's up.

Sounds like your HDD though, how long have you had it?

From it all it does really sound like your HDD is gone, you should be able to recover the data at a local repair shop.

[TGWTHF]

well I don't really own a usb stick ((I do but its a free one from college and only has 108MBs of space on it :S)) how am i supposed to get ubunto to boot from the usb tho?...

when you start it up it makes that weird duh duh dun noise ((i'm terrible with sound effects)) but im sure thats the hard drive, and, if it WAS the hard drive, wouldn't the new one we bought work in it? ((it doesn't))... its really got us beat...

we have had the pc for little over 2 years I think... though the pc model itself is a 4 year old model so..., and wouldn't it cost a fortune to have like 200GB's of data recovered?.. o.O

[mikeo01]

So the new hard drive does not work on your new motherboard? Is that correct?

Use the new motherboard, use the new hard drive with the stock power supply. Make sure you have plugged the IDE In correctly so its the master drive?Assuming your new hard drive is also IDE?

Make sure you have little load on the power supply, so leave only the CPU fan in, keyboard, video cable and your hard drive cable in. Just to ensure the HDD is getting enough power.

You could try removing all components, all fan plugs (except CPU), so that the only thing plugged in is the power cables. Basically the BIOS will detect nothing. Then reboot and reinstall everything, so that the BIOS redetects the IDE and SATA. Something may have messed up on first install with the motherboard, which maybe moving the jumper does not fix.

What motherboard is it? Make sure it actually supports the drives.

You need to make sure the new hard drive is detected before ruling out anything. I am assuming its IDE, but if its SATA try a different SATA port.

Quite an odd problem, there should be no reason for a new HDD not to be detected by a new motherboard.

Go into the BIOS and see if you can redetect the hard drive, just by pressing enter usually on "Not detected" next to the drives.

Is the new hard drive SATA or IDE? If IDE it's probably a dead IDE cable.

Good sound effect! I think I know what you mean
Recovering data will be pricey yeah. And booting Ubuntu from a USB is just like booting from a drive, but I wouldn't worry about booting up, you need to get the BIOS to detect the HDD first.

I don't see why the DVD drive cannot boot a disc, unless you are that unfortunate and the lens have gone on it.

[TGWTHF]

I don't know thay are both Sata, the motherboard only has one Sata port ((apart from the disk drives one)), an the mother boards are M2N78-LA (Violet) ones, i bought a new one of the exact same one that was in it before just to make sure... and my dad did say he got it detecting the new one, its just when he tried to put the operating system on it it stopped detecting it half way through, then the disk drive stopped loading the disks or something, its hard for me to do anything to it now lol, we took it in to the local computer shop for them to look at it, we get it back in 5 or so days, its a free diagnosis as well ((which is always a plus xD))m so hopefully they can figure out whats wrong with it, and if they can't, I'll strip it down to spare parts and sell it on, and use the money to buy myself the new gaming PC that i was looking at getting XD

thank you so much for helping :3

[mikeo01]

It stopped reading? Are you sure you formatted the new hard drive properly when installing Windows? usually an error when installing Windows can either be the disc is scratched, or the hard drive isn't properly formatted.
One SATA? I assume you are referring to the IDE which is a long slot, big thin parallel cable? Anyhow if the HDD is now actually detecting I would assume its something to do with the partitioning on the HDD.

To be honest even if you fix it, if your going for a new build either way I would sell the parts individually anyway, unless you would use it for a backup system. Or take them back for a refund?

[TGWTHF]

I dunno, it was brand new hard drive from a store so one would assume its already formatted XD
and yes one sata, there is no IDE connection on the motherboard, its a sata hard drive and only one sata port for the hard drive for some reason, its not long, its small and thin... maybe its because its a 4 year+ model? lol
I honestly have no idea, it wasn't partitioned at all.. well.. the old one was, it has 16GBs for the system, and the other 285GBs was for other stuff XD, but the new one can't have been lol

lol take a 3 year old pc back for refund? XD its a HP Pavilion A6716UK lol it was £444 reduced from £500 xD

and I wanted to keep that one for my dad to use in the living room ((where it was all the time)) because i'm going to put the new one in my bedroom where i can play games and yell down the mic at people, which i couldn't do in the living room XD

[mikeo01]

Brand new from stores are not formatted, they are blank so it looks like when you tried to install Windows it produced an error because it couldn't create the necessary boot partition and system files, and primary partition (all programs install on) because the file system wasn't actually NTFS. That's probably the error, which is easily solved by going into advanced on the boot disc and creating one partition, deleting it to make it FREE space then install on. You may as well keep the HDD for backups or something

I meant take the parts you bought back for a refund lol but if you can't yeah its best to sell them individually and get some money back at all, for a new system. But if you want to keep the old one make sure its working first lol

You will appreciate your new build, remember to format the HDD properly and everything else is a piece of cake. It'll be a huge improvement from your last computer

[TGWTHF]

lol can you take separate parts from buying a PC whole back for refunds separately?... lol

I dunno, it wasn't an error installing, it just stopped spinning the disk :S...

I k now i'll appreciate it haha, yeah i know i'd need to make sure it works also xD

[mikeo01]

Oh you bought it as a whole, then no, no you can't lol.

And it may have seemed the disc stopped spinning, but it could also be a format problem. Even if you haven't formatted it, Windows will try attempt to install on it. Either it'll stall, or you will get an installation error or BSOD. If the DVD drive is knackered you'll know.

To install Windows you just go into advanced, custom then the easiest way is just to create a new partition to however you want, then format, then install. You will know if its your DVD drive because on your new build it'll stall again. Make sure the disc isn't scratched. Scratches that follow around the disc (in a circle) are the ones that could mess up reading data. Light scratches from the inside out are not so bad that's why you clean a dish from the inside out, so make sure your disc is good. You can download Windows 7 digitally now for a trial (unless Microsoft stopped it again), and write it onto a brand new disc (that is if you find your disc to be scratched to hell )

If your DVD detects the disc and you are able to browse the contents your DVD lens is working. If it detects the disc but can't access it your lens are knackered.

[TGWTHF]

lol XD thought as much

oh i always thought if it was empty if it was formatted, all i ever understood formatting to do was delete everything that is on the disk/drive/whatever-holds-pc-files XD

i dunno, I always cleaned the disk like i have my glasses, the whole thing at once XD haha

and i dunno if i can b rowse the contents, the pc wouldn't load up to windows to attempt it so XD

[mikeo01]

Well yeah formatting does clear everything, but formats it to a file system type if you are installing Windows 7 you should be able to just "Delete" the partition to make it free space, then install it.

And its quite difficult to see if its working without Windows. My guess it is something on the hard drive end or the physical disc because you could initially read the disc. Be sure theres no scratches on the disc

[TGWTHF]

see you learn something new every day.. being 16 ((near 17 on may 6th XD)) I don't know how some things work, but with using a computer, I've been using one since I was like 3 years old ((no seriously... it was about that age that i had to show one of my sisters how to use a printer and she was like 9-10 or so years older than me XD haha))

I dunno, maybe we'll see when the tower comes back