suggestions for dead(?) hdd

Post by **blakjack** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 2:25 pm

i will have more time to troubleshoot tomorrow night, but any suggestions in the mean time will be helpful

my family's pc (i have my own) has died it seems, bro was playing a game and it just shut itself off. trying to turn it back on by pressing the power button did nothing. My first thought was psu bunged/short circuited, but when i briefly looked at it, the motherboard was receiving power, and the fans (case and psu) went to spin up when the power button was pressed...but just stopped.

so my dad took it to his work where they could try another psu. it didnt work either, ruling the psu out. so removing components and plugging them back in, it worked until a case fan was added ... then nothing. so the case fan was replaced, and they tried reconnecting the hard drives (2).

now this is the problem, and i will look into it further but, whenever the hard drive/s are connected, the system wont turn on. I only tried it with the master but i saw myself, just connecting up the hdd means it wont turn on. The other guy at my dad's work said that the drives were screwed and the data is lost, but it seems weird that nothing is even powering up, the hard drive doesnt spin up. I am sure that the data is still on there, but something might have been shorted or a component fried.

So can anyone tell me 1) what has likely happened 2) any other testing suggestions? 3) anything i can do about it without spending 100s-1000s on data recovery. Nothing critical on there to warrant that cost, but lots of data, games, emails and pictures (including wedding pics)... :icon8:

i reckon it is just a shorted component and thus the psu safeties are kicking in, but i dont know what im looking for and whether it can be fixed. im also wary about plugging it into my pc in case it causes adverse reactions there as well.

preliminary googling hasnt helped, will look more at work tomorrow
thanks+goodnight

Post by **SoM** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 3:42 pm

try some recovery tools

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=hdd ... rams&meta=

if that dont work, spend $$$$$ or just forget it and get a new hd

Post by **axbaby** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 3:45 pm

i say the drive isn't dead but the motherboard may be the culprit.

try the drive in another computer.

PSU does sound like the problem but if you swapped it out that rules that as the cause unless the PSU you tried lacked enough power. check the wattage on the swapped PSU ..it may have been an old PSU lacking enough juice.

install only 1 drive ..1 stick of ram ..the video card and a keyboard ..no case fan "leave case cover off". test

Post by **axbaby** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 3:45 pm

SoM wrote:try some recovery tools

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=hdd ... rams&meta=

if that dont work, spend $$$$$ or just forget it and get a new hd

hey there

Post by **SoM** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 3:52 pm

axbaby wrote:
SoM wrote:try some recovery tools

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=hdd ... rams&meta=

if that dont work, spend $$$$$ or just forget it and get a new hd
hey there

heya bro..

come visit us sometime

64.37.227.31:27960

Post by **axbaby** » Mon Jun 20, 2005 4:01 pm

i was there this weekend testing my new ping which is slightly better.

Post by **blakjack** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:10 am

i cant use recovery tools at this point because the machine wont even start to post...

i personally havent tried the hdds in my computer for fear that if its fucked, it could damage mine as well, but the other guy that looked at it said he plugged the hdds into a spare pc and it wouldnt post there either. so i'll try it sometime and hope.

I had 10 minutes to unplug shit this morning and try again - there is no evidence of damage (burns, leaks, cracks etc) anywhere and with most of it removed i still cant get a response apart from the fans spinning up. so like ax said the mobo might be buggered in addition.

tonight I will hopefully have time to remove the mobo, run it off a hunk of wood, and rule out any kind of shorting between it and the case. we have a spare jetway (el cheapo) mobo and an old duron lying around in case we need it for testing, but they were replaced because they were extremely prone to nasty STOP errors in xp.

Post by **Kammesennin** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 2:53 am

definitely sounds like a short from the hdd, could be possible the mobo has trouble, but if the hdd was tested in another case with same results, i would definitely assume that's the problem. All I can tell ya is grab a new hdd. If you really want to, you could attempt data recovery.

Post by **axbaby** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 3:28 am

connect's a case fan and the system won't post .. that's one of the reason i don't blame or solely blame the hdd

Post by **SoM** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 4:49 am

blakjack..

you can connect a dead/messed up hd to a good pc without worries.. i've done it many times..

and iirc, the dead hd, must be pluged into a working pc to be able to use the recovery tools..

gl

Post by **FragaGeddon** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 6:30 am

I think my motherboard in my my computer is fried. It would reboot every time it go half way through the boot screen. Wouldn't even boot to a floppy.
Turned it off and now it won't even boot.

Post by **blakjack** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 12:47 pm

Okay with Everything but the CPU disconnected from the motherboard, the CPU fan spins up but there is no response (beeps etc). And the northbridge fan 'tries' to spin occasionally, but pretty much always stays still. Also the indication lights (power etc) on the front case do not illuminate. This pretty much suggests either the mobo or the CPU is screwed.

More importantly, I have connected both hard drives separately to my machine (disconnected the existing hdd in there) and both will refuse to respond - as soon as I plug in the molex connector and hit the power button...nothing. If I then remove the hdd and hit the power connector...nothing - I have to reset the PSU so it's clear that something is being short circuited and the safeties tripped.

This also suggests to me that connecting up one of the dud drives as a slave to my working hdd wont work because it will still trip the psu and it wont turn on.

The only explanation i can think of is a power surge has ripped up pretty much all the hardware in the computer. I dont know to what extent this is possible, but it sure is a bugger. It doesnt make any sense though - there is no visible damage and there was no noise/smell etc and there was no flickering lights/tv etc. I was even using my pc at the same time! The hard drives look perfectly okay - this all seems new and weird to me, never come across anything like this before.

Will look into taking the hard drives to an expert - perhaps one small component can be replaced and the drives become accessible again. Will probably call a loss on the mobo etc. cheers.

Post by **axbaby** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:04 pm

FragaGeddon wrote:I think my motherboard in my my computer is fried. It would reboot every time it go half way through the boot screen. Wouldn't even boot to a floppy.
Turned it off and now it won't even boot.

you could blame the heatsync fan ,cpu,ram.loose pci card,power supply,bad hardware card.

you have some work to do .. if you have spare parts that would be nice.

Post by **axbaby** » Tue Jun 21, 2005 1:08 pm

blakjack wrote: Will probably call a loss on the mobo etc. cheers.

that's a bummer .. been there done that.
shit happens for no reason sometimes.
once had a mouse that made my cpu and motherboard appear dead .. it's tricky trying to figure out what's wrong without spare parts.