HDD Dead?

[Denic]

Hello all.

My brother has just brought a 6 month old PC, when he tries to turn it on it says SATA Device not found, and when we go into the bios to check if it's recognising the HDD.... It isn't recognising it, it just says "not found"

Is the HDD bust ?

Thanks

[Denic]

Hmm.... When we format it it just stays on 1% and doesn't move.... It's been like that for 35mins so we canceled it.

[colinloves]

I don't know about SATA, but I would say its kinda broken. You might be lucky if you use it as a slave and try to bring it back to life.

[Clunk]

Im puzzled as to how you can even start formatting it if the bios doesnt recognise it?

[Denic]

Well... I'm no expert.... But for some reason know we've got it to the installing if windows xp screen and it's crashed on "registering components"

I kind of think that a new HDD is in need.

[Denic]

Gah, this is crazy ! We had it working, booting and everything, working in BiOS and it went again, we decided to just buy a new HDD....

[FInalD]

It could quite possibly be a RAM problem, dodgey RAM can have this sort of effect as well...test with a new HDD first though.

FinalD

[Denic]

It could quite possibly be a RAM problem, dodgey RAM can have this sort of effect as well...test with a new HDD first though.

FinalD

Just bought a new HDD and it's doing the same thing

[FInalD]

I used to have some dodgey RAM, brand new and it was messing up the pc in the same sort of way you are describing, looks like there may be more expenditure for you yet

FinalD

[Clunk]

some sata 2 hard drives require you to set a jumper to work on certain motherboards, that is worth having a look at.

[Denic]

The jumper is just the little switch on the back of the HDD ain't it?

[Clunk]

this kind of thing, only just one of them i think.

there is usually some kind of diagram on the drive somewhere that tells you where to put the jumper.

[gamesaregood]

Run a tool on the hard drive to find out if there are any problems with it, i would recomend the Seagate tool, works on all hard drives

[Denic]

Guys, thanks for all of your help.... It's fixed now... Long story, but it's fully working now !

Thanks for your help any way guys. :-)

[Yellowbeard]

Guys, thanks for all of your help.... It's fixed now... Long story, but it's fully working now !

Thanks for your help any way guys. :-)

Don't leave us hanging.

Tell us what it was.

[Denic]

I did a search on google and I eventually found something.... It was a 3 button command I had to do in the bios .... Here is the text I followed :

"Dell systems work better on Cable select. Try setting it like that, with the master drive on the black connector, and the slave drive on the grey connector. It should work out like that. After you've done that, go into your BIOS, and light up the NumLock, CapsLock, and ScrollLock lights on your keyboard. Hold <Alt>+F, then hit <Alt>+E. After it stops beeping, hit <Alt>+B, and this will restart your system. That procedure sets your BIOS back to defaults, and it should force the system to redetect all of the IDE drives."

Thanks !