Hard Drive Failure - How do I salvage system? (for a beginner)

Hey all. I was wondering if anyone could give me some direction on an issue I'm having. I believe my hard drive is failing; it began to get hit with some viruses about a month and a half ago, got to the point where I had to reinstall Windows XP, and since then has deteriorated to the point where I cannot boot the OS. I've checked the Boot Sequence in Setup, and it tells me that the Onboard SATA Hard Drive is not present (in fact, the only thing that is present is the CD drive). So, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that I need to replace my hard drive. My question is: with the issue I'm having, do I go ahead and buy a completely new hard drive (tower and all), or is there a more cost-effective way to fix my problem, a piece of equipment I can get replaced? And do I need to worry about compatibility with any of my other equipment (monitor, speakers, etc.)? Any info would be awesome. Thanks.

 

turn off power pull side off tower. take out h/drive,the little black box usually situated at the bottom,replace with new one reset cmos at the same time set to boot from cd/dvd install operating system cd follow the prompts,reboot,install motherboard driver disk, reboot then install graphics card cd if it has one reboot ,and your system is ready to go, a new hd should cost around aus$100 for 160 gb hope this has helped you

 

:wave Welcome to Major Geeks! :major
First lets get some terminology straightened out; "hard drive" refers to a part which is inside the tower, and we usually call a tower the "PC". If we call the PC a hard drive, we end up with massive confusion. So, if the hard drive is failing, there is no need to buy a new PC. Just open the case, remove the faulty hard dive, and install a new one. From what you posted, your hard drive is a SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment; more info here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA) interface, meaning it uses a small cable (usally red, but occasionally blue or orange or other colors) to connect to the motherboard. Any computer store will stock SATA hard drives for replacement. Jut tell 'em you need an internal SATA hard drive and what size you want (up to 1TB, but 160gb to 500gb is average). Prices have really come down and you should be able to get a 250gb drive for under $100 US. Now, if you want to save the data on your current hard drive, that is an entirely different matter. Also remember that a new drive is 100% blank and has no partitions, no data, no Windows, nothing, and when installed in your PC, it will do exactly what it does now, which is nothing. You will need to install Windows back to the new drive which requires a Windows install CD/DVD....

I hope this clears things up for you.... Good luck!

[dlb]
:major

(if you have any questions, feel free to post 'em here)

 

Hey again, little update and some more questions about my situation. I'm taking steps to prove to myself that, yes, the hard drive needs to be replaced (I know I said I'm resigned to that, but I want to cover my bases first). So far, I've gone through, checked the power and data connections, both of which seemed to have no effect on the hard drive. So my next step is to run it as a slave drive on another computer. However, I'm a little confused as to how to do so. A friend of mine showed me a diagram existing on the back of my hard drive that, according to him, shows the jumper pin setting to set the drive as a slave drive, and I've located these pins on the drive (next to power and data connection). I was under the impression that there was a cord I needed to get to attach from these pins to the master drive, but upon calling my friendly neighborhood Radio Shack ("I've got questions, you told me to go to NewEgg") to see if they sold this cord, I was told that there's actually a switch on the back with the options of Master, Slave, and Cable. This I have not located. Can anyone clear this up for me?

Also, I was searching internal hard drives on NewEgg, and was wondering if anyone could pass along some purchasing advice. Again, it's a Serial-ATA drive I'm looking for, and as I'm only looking for a hard drive to fulfill some basic needs (I'm not looking for a system to support the latest in computer gaming), I'm going for price over quality. A friend of mine told me Maxtor drives are pretty trustworthy, so the particular drive I was looking at was this one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822144487

It's a 3.0Gb/s SATA interface, the same as my old hard drive. The 160 GB capacity is nice, as I plan on storing my extensive CD collection on it. But, as I've never made a purchase like this before, I want to make sure I'm not forgetting any questions I should be asking myself, or specifications that I'm overlooking, before I go about making an ill-advised decision.

Any advice/help is greatly appreciated. Just think of it as earning good karma points; if you want, I'll send an invoice for good karma points to anyone who responds.

 

That link you showed should work just fine. However, 160gb isn't squat anymore...especially when you are talking for multi-media storage/use.

Before you do any of this though...I know you said you checked all the cables etc., to make sure they are snug, but did you try connecting the drive to a different SATA connector on the motherboard...and for good measure, try different known working and/or new SATA cable. You might be surprised!!

As far as checking this on another machine...

1st - you need a mchine with SATA hard drive interface.

2nd - those pins your buddy is talking about on the back, should have a little plastic jumper to connect two of those pins. Which two pins you wanna stick that jumper on is dependent on whether you want Slave or Master. There is usually a jumper diagram printed on the top of the drive, or sometimes if you turn it over, you might see MA, SL, or CS printed on the circuit board right behind where those pins stick out at. So you put the jumper on Master for the main boot hard drive, and Slave on the secondary drive. Then connect the power chord and the sata cable as you normally would...that's it...no cables connect to those jumper pins.

 

we are not here for points, we just want to help others. i just recently picked up a 500 gbyte sata h/d for $89.99 at my local store, and i had also priced it at tiger direct for the same price. if i were you i'd shop around on prices (local, as well as internet), i personally scan all sunday ads weekly (ie - bestbuy, circuitcity, officedepot, officemax, etc.)

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...PC&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM1655-_-Components

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...PC&cm_mmc=Email-_-Main-_-WEM1658-_-components

these are just a couple of links, i'm not telling you where to shop (or what to buy), just pointing out price alternatives. g/l, sos

edit - just make sure you research/purchase the correct h/d for your application. - sos

 

I'm just going to reiterate what rogvalcox said go for at least a 250gb drive if you are planning on storing an extensive CD collection. Minimal price difference.

One quick thing try unplugging the computer and removing the battery for 5 minutes. Then replace battery and plug in and see if BIOS recognizes the drive.