Hard Disc Drive Problem.. help!

I've just tried to boot up my PC and as the XP loading screen came up the hard drive started to make a quiet scratching sort of noise, then i got a BSOD and the pc just restarted itself! And it just keeps going round and round rebooting and then blue screening as the XP load screen comes on.
I've tried to boot in safe mode but it just won't do it for some reason!

I'm worried it might be a failed hard drive, like firmware corruption or even the mechanics of the drive itself.

HAS ANYONE EXPERIENCED THIS BEFORE? It might be something else for all i know, but i dont know what. I need to fix it!! Its been blue screening a few times over the past month or two but i never found out why.

I would really appreciate any help! Thanks in advance.

 

How do i read the BSOD? Its only on the screen for a split second, is there any way of stopping it so i can read it?

I have a second hard drive but i cant boot from it because windows isnt installed on it, and i dont have a windows xp cd.

I can get access to another pc to try and use it as a slave drive so i myt have to try that, is there any configuring i need to do to be able to access it or will it just be like plug and play and appear in 'my computer'?

 

I don't seem to be able to boot the system into Windows Advanced Options using F8, it just aint working! and i don't know why.. Does anyone know why it won't let me?

If i can get on that safe mode menu can i disable 'reboot on system error' so i can read the blue screen??

cheers

 

Ok thanks mate, looks like i'm going to have to try that.
Is there any software I could use for helping with this? or is it just like transferring data like you would do manually?

Thanks again.

 

Thanks again mate, luckily my mate has a cable so i'm going getting it off him in a bit.

Just one more thing, I have a slave drive, which i now want to use a master hard drive. Do i need to adjust something on the drive itself to allow this?

edit: Just had a look on youtube, i know what i need to do.

Thanks.

 

RIGHT, I've just tried another hard drive (with windows installed on it) in my PC and it STILL Blue screened after windows loading screen and restarted.
So now i dont think its the hard drive, and i also disconnected the CD drive and put the old Graphics card in (i had recently upgraded) and ran the PC completely basic and i still get a BSOD!

So that leaves me with Mother board or Memory doesn't it??

I can't disable automatic restart with system failure, because i can't start the pc normally or in safe mode. So i cant read the bsod.

Any suggestions?? I'm stuck!

Thanks. Rik

 

Or could it be software or a virus?? lol, its doin my friggin head in this.

Another thing that happens is after the Bios, it takes a good 10 seconds (its usually instant) or so before the Windows XP loading screen comes on, and it fades in really slowly :s

With another hard drive plugged in it just went from bios to black then to BSOD.

 

The second HD isn't loading because Windows was installed while it was attached to another PC. You have to install Windows on the PC which it will be run on.

Put your original HD back in to the PC (make sure that if you made any changes to the jumpers you put them back to Master). Unplug the machine and let it sit for several hours (8-12). See if it will boot. Many time a failing HD will work after cooling down.

Good luck!

 

Thanks sach2. Well i put it all back to how it was originally late last night so its probably had about 8 hours now. I'll try it afterwards.

I havn't had chance to try the master HD as a slave in another pc yet so if it doesn't boot up this morning i'll try that later on to see if it definately is the HD.

thanks again.

 

Just one more thing.. Now that i'm going to use my secondary hard drive as the primary one, on its own, do i set the jumpers to master or cable select?

I dont really know what the difference is? lol

 

Setting it as Master is preferable. Make sure you use the jumper settings from the label on the drive. Each manufacturer has their own settings. (So if you then add your old drive as slave you would use its label to find the Slave setting).

I guess you are going to find a way to load Windows on the drive you are setting as the new Master?

 

yeah i want to install windows on the old slave drive which i have now set as the master but it won't let me boot from disc. And i don't know why??

I've tried the xp disc in another pc and it works fine.

I've set the bios to boot from cd drive but it just spins the cd and the screen stays blank.

To make matters worse, ive plugged my original master into another pc using an IDE USB cable and its telling me the device isnt working properly in the Device properties and it wont let me access it :s

I'm stuck! lol. god damn computers

 

Ok, you have the slave set as master and attached to the end connector on the IDE cable.
You have Bios set to boot from CD first.

Two things you could try are disconnecting the HD and try booting with just the CD hooked up. See if there is any difference.

Try any bootable CD to see if your Bios is really set correctly. If you don't have one try downloading a bootable HD Diagnostic utility from your HD manufacter's website and burning a bootable CD. Something like this ISO http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=502&sid=30&lang=en

ImgBurn will burn the ISO to Cd for you.

If that Cd boots then Bios is set correctly and your no-boot problem has something to do with your Windows disk.

If you decide to/can download a diagnostic utility get the correct one for the bad HD. That way you can actually use the CD to see if it finds correctable problems with the original drive. If your HD is Maxtor/Seagate you will need their utility instead.

 

I've just tried booting from disc with the XP disc in another PC and it worked fine. So what could it be??

The bios is set to boot from CD drive as its first choice and i have also used F11 to boot through CD drive using the boot menu. But its still doing the same, cd spins but screen stays blank.

I havn't tried the HDD diag utility disc yet but i have made one and will try it when i get home to my broken pc.

Is there something ime missing in the bios setup?? I jst cant understand it.

The cd drive was working 2 days ago so i would find it hard to beleive that the HD and cd drive have gone knackered at the same time.

 

Make sure the HDD diag was burnt as an image so that it is bootable. I guess you could test that on the PC you are on now.

On the Bios, I was thinking of a Dell bios where you had to Enable a drive in one section and then set the boot order in another section.

One possibility us that you may have loosened the monitor connection and are missing a prompt to "Hit any key to boot from CD..". It seems to me your Bios ought to be giving you some message such as "No OS found" or similar after it attempts to find an OS on the CD and then the HD and doesn't succeed.

 

Well ive just been asked on another forum if the drives are on seperate IDE cables, which they are, the HDD is on one connection to the MB and the CD drive is on another connection to the MB. Does that make any difference?

I'll try the diag disc now and then go home and have another mess about with the broken pc and just check for enabling drives in bios setup.

Yeah, i was expecting a hit any key message aswel. I'me gonna take a monitor home with me just to make sure.

I'll let you know how i get on.

Cheers mate

 

It is good for them to be on separate cables because CDROMs run slower than HD. Just double check that you have connected the HD set as master to the end connector on it's cable (as opposed to the middle one which is used for slave drives).

Good Luck!

 

One other thing you could try is to burn a new copy of your Windows CD by using imgburn and creating an image file from disc to your HD and then burning the image to a new disc. Very slight chance that your home CDROM might read a fresh disc easier than an old one.

If you've got a few minutes and a CD available might be worth a try.

 

I checked all my connections and everything was in the right place, and it still wouldn't work.
AND THEN i thought, hmmm i'll just try using my old tft monitor (rather than my lcd tv) and 'Press any key to boot from cd' came up on the screen straight away! I couldn't beleive it!
So all this time it was just down to the fact that my lcd TV for some reason would not display some of the dos/XP setup messages! weird....

I have now managed to install XP on the old slave drive, which is now my master drive, and i am now trying to retreive data from my original HD with a IDE USB cable but i'm not having much luck... lol

The PC recognises the drive when i plug it in but i can't access it from anywhere. And this happens with a third HDD i have also tried, which i used to double check the cable was working properly. Again, the PC recognises it and tells me its installed and working properly, but i cant access it from anywhere??

I've tried the jumpers in both master and slave positions which does make a difference (only works in slave position as u wud expect) but other than that i dont know what to try.

Let me know if you have any suggestions, ime gonna google it now.

Thanks again for all your help Sach2!

 

One more thing, I need to reinstall my Motherboard drivers but don't have the disc. It reads Conroe Preslar FSB1066 in the centre of the board. Is this the board make/model?

I can't find drivers for it if it is.

 

Good catch on the monitor! :dood

Try SIW for your motherboard model number. Then check the manufacturer's website.

I've never used a USB-IDE cable. Is the HD getting enough power? I think the HD has to either be plugged in to the motherboard or an external power source, but I am unsure.

Alternatively, does your PC's HD IDE cable have a middle connector where the Slave could be attached? That would be the usual setup.

If not you could temporarily leave the Master HD where it is on the HD cable. Then disconnect your CDROM from it's cable and attach your second HD to the CDROM cable with the jumpers set to Master. So your your new HD is master on the HD cable and the old HD is master on the CDROM cable. Your PC will boot from the new HD and have access to the old HD. Then see if you can get any data from it.

 

Good thinking batman, i hadn't thought of just swapping the the 2 drives around on the IDE cable, i have been using the IDE USB cable because at first i was going to try and retreive the data onto another pc. I'll try that and the CD rom cable method aswel in a minute.

I'll let ya know how i get on...

Cheers!

 

Right i'm starting to get somewhere now, it worked using the old HDD as a slave in the pc, windows automatically did some diagnostic procedure on it and ive been able to retreive a lot of data (some is corrupt and unretreivable), apart from my personal documents, which it won't let me access because i had a password set on my user. hmm... so i don't know how to get around that one yet.

Ive used SIW and found my motherboard model number: 775Dual-VSTA
but i'me not sure what drivers to download because ive found some bios stuff aswel. I am unable to use my network port, etc at the moment beause of this.

 

In the Hardware devices list, everything listed under 'other devices' have no drivers installed. Such as, Ethernet controller, RAID controller, system interupt controller, video controller.

Is that all motherboard driver stuff?

 

On the My Documents folder you may be able to take ownership of the folder http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421 (Read carefully--if you are on XP Home Edition you need to start up in safe mode to see the Security tab).

After you get as much as you can off the HD go ahead ane try running the manufacturer's diagnostic tool using the LONG test. It may be able to fix a few errors and free up more information.

On the drivers: the general rule is leave BIOS alone unless you are having a problem specifically listed in the update. In this case I would ignore the BIOS downloads. Just download the drivers for your OS, XP or Vista. http://www.asrock.com/mb/download.asp?Model=775Dual-vsta

Via should be graphics

 

Cheers mate, you've been really helpful, i would probably still be scratching my head right now if it wernt for you! lol.

Thanks again, i'll keep trying with the HD and try and retreive as much as i can, but in the meantime my PCs working all nice and smooth again :-D and i've sorted out all the driver problems.

Nice one.