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Hi, my brothers computer from Time is not working anymore has a result of the hard drive failing (so I though). Initially the BIOS does not recognise the hard drive at all so I tried a brand new Seagate barracuda 160GB which is the exact same has the one before and it still don’t recognise it could it be a virus that inflicted the actual BIOS? Is it possible to re-install the BIOS? Thanks in advance
No, its more likely to be simple like a cable fallen out.
Its also possible the the IDE controller has been disabled in the BIOS (there would be an option for this).
Have you made sure the cable is in nice and firm at both ends? Does the optical drive still get power?
umm i'l go check if its the IDE controller. i swapped IDE cables and made sure its connected properly but still no joy. Yea i can hear the hard drive spinning too. BIOS however somtimes recognise only a slave HD not a Master. i tried switching jumpers too :(
you've not got the HDD on the same controller as the CD drive have you? (un-neciserry performance hit if there only 2 drives, let each one have its own controller).
nope they are seperated.
I have tried the above and still no joy :( it must be the ide controller thats damaged somehow. How can i repair it?
before saying that, its prudent to check the CD drive works, if the CD drive also dosen't get seen by the BIOS then odds are the controller is damaged. First question then is how the ***k. I've only ever seen that happen by misuse, when someone's pulled a cable out whilst its still been running. To test the CD drive, put a boot CD in (say your installtion/recovery CD that came with the PC) and see if you can boot on it (first see if the BIOS can actually detect it)
If its the IDE controller then you can either buy a new motherboard, or a "raid" controller card (PCI) and just use it for the HDD. I'd be tempted to go for the new motherboard option, as it wouldn't be much more expensive.
Whats the PSU in that machine?
The cd drives do appear, its just the hdd that dont :( i will check the psu but it should not be more than 350w
Jumpers?
i tried the Jumpers from the hdd. i will have a look again when i reach home to see if theirs any jumpers in the motherboard that will reset the cmos....
why has j.o.s.h changed into jonneymendza ? who has the problem j.o.s.h or Jonney ?
Do I smell a user with 2 identities ?
I reset the CMOS and disconnected the cd drives and the result was the same has before. It still does not work :(
The hard drive in question, western digital? Check the jumper setting on the drive itself. I would also try the hd in another sysytem to make sure that it is not at fault, also dl from the manufacturers site, their hd tools and test the drive.
Stick the drive onto another pc if you can as a slave (dont forget to change jumpers if you need to) and try and read and copy the data if you need to, verify the drives ok first, or try flashing your bios to the latest if you can
Pete