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Computer people out there, i need your help!

On Friday, my pc started messing me about a lot, and then on saturday, it decided that my hard disk is broken, but would still boot up off of my ofther hard disk, which has a back-up copy of Windows XP and my Media.

Then today, when i came home to switch it on after work, it couldnt find the other hard disk, once again, for no reason.

I had the chance to test the first one out in another machine, and it appears to be dead, but i have not had the chance to test the other yet.

WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?!? o_O

ive tried different IDE cables and fuckin about with the jumpers on the back of the drives, but with no luck. :down:

My PC was only built a few months ago, and had no problems before.

Please help me before i go insane! :help:

Regards,

Bob :gringo:

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Guest MarkJDelaney

Jumpers on the HDD should match the position set in the bios, check that. Check your boot up sequence is correct (ie: cd-rom, floppy, hdd)

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yeah, ive treid all that, i thing they are both actually dead, my PC was able to boot up from a shit old HDD i had, so i have deemed my HDDs as being randomly, prematurly dead. when i plug in the power cable, neither of them do anything, you can normally hear them turning on, but methinks they ar both fried...

Anyone got an old hard disk which they want to sell muchos-cheap? im desperate!

Regards,

Bob :gringo:

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i actually have a spare PSU' date=' ill gee it a shot with that. and yes, this is the most unlucky thing thats happened to me in a while, its not just because they arent working, its that i have lost EVERYTHING that they had :(

How much for your spare drives? i may take 'em both[/quote']

it may be possible to do data recovery on the apparently broken disks.

i bought a new hard drive about 18 months ago, and it failed 3 weeks after i'd bought, once i'd copied all my data across from the new hard drive and formatted that. i was advised that unless i wanted to pay about 2000 quid for data recovery experts to recover the data, the best bet was to place the hard drive in an anti-static bag, tape it up, and leave it in a freezer for about 6 hours. which is exactly what i did. and it worked.

that sort of solution is most definitely a last ditch effort though; once i had copied all my data to another good hard drive, i sent it straight back to the supplier. have you tried the hard drives in another computer at all? and did you say that your PC can display the bios screen when you switch it on? because if it can, then it's unlikely anything is wrong with the PSU.

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The freezer thing is the absolute, tried absolutely every other possibility, drive has no warranty left on it *LAST THING* you should try. It's actually only effective in sorting a stuck read/write head and will give you just enough time to recover the data before the condensation makes absolutely sure your drive is destroyed.

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The freezer thing is the absolute' date=' tried absolutely every other possibility, drive has no warranty left on it *LAST THING* you should try. It's actually only effective in sorting a stuck read/write head and will give you just enough time to recover the data before the condensation makes absolutely sure your drive is destroyed.[/quote']

mostly correct. mine actually worked for about 5 days before i returned it, running about 8 hours each of those days. for all i know, it would have kept on running for longer, but i wanted to return it within the 30 day warranty. if the drive has a chipset failure there's no way freezing it will help.

the drive didn't seem to generate much condensation, sticking it in the anti static bag and pushing as much of the air out of it helped to ensure it was a very dry freeze. and it went from having a surface temperature cold enough to stick to my fingers to something over +40C in a very short space of time.

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right i know this a bit off topic but i didnt want to start a new thread for more computer help and since a few of you seem to know your shit i thought u could maybe help me.

About a week i restarted my pc and instead of booting up it came up with scanning hard drive for bios image and wouldnt do anything so i left it off for a while and it came back on. Now it happens everytime you restart the pc when its no, starting it up when its been off is no problem just restarting, any ideas at all what that could be??

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right i know this a bit off topic but i didnt want to start a new thread for more computer help and since a few of you seem to know your shit i thought u could maybe help me.

About a week i restarted my pc and instead of booting up it came up with scanning hard drive for bios image and wouldnt do anything so i left it off for a while and it came back on. Now it happens everytime you restart the pc when its no' date=' starting it up when its been off is no problem just restarting, any ideas at all what that could be??[/quote']

computers can only handle so much pornography, give it what it wants and switch it off now and again.

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i tried the freezer thing. i think that it can be determined that the drive aint gonna run again. I would like to get its contents back, as it held my whole media collection, but i could survive without it if not possible.

Basically, i cant afford to go out and buy a new drive right now, as im not working for the next month, and this one was too young to die, yet two weeks past its warranty :down:

I really need a new drive so i can get this machine up and running for writing essays.

anyone got an old uber-cheap or free one i could have? :up:

PLEASE!!

Regards,

Bob :gringo:

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i tried the freezer thing. i think that it can be determined that the drive aint gonna run again. I would like to get its contents back' date=' as it held my whole media collection, but i could survive without it if not possible.

Basically, i cant afford to go out and buy a new drive right now, as im not working for the next month, and this one was too young to die, yet two weeks past its warranty :down:

I really need a new drive so i can get this machine up and running for writing essays.

anyone got an old uber-cheap or free one i could have? :up:

PLEASE!!

Regards,

Bob :gringo:[/quote']

if you can't afford a new drive i think i can quite safely say that you can't afford Data Recovery dude... looks like all is lost on this one..

however, try online places for cheap drives, Scan, Dabs, Novatech all good...

and for god's sake don't use that PSU on the new HD!!!

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right i know this a bit off topic but i didnt want to start a new thread for more computer help and since a few of you seem to know your shit i thought u could maybe help me.

About a week i restarted my pc and instead of booting up it came up with scanning hard drive for bios image and wouldnt do anything so i left it off for a while and it came back on. Now it happens everytime you restart the pc when its no' date=' starting it up when its been off is no problem just restarting, any ideas at all what that could be??[/quote']

Try reseting the bios if you dont know how look down.

Open your case and look for a CR2032 battery on your motherboard - ts the size of a 10p coin. It may be in a different position than this, but it looks like this:

cmosbattery.jpg

(the thing circled in green is the battery and the thing circled in pink is the clear CMOS jumper)

Close up of the jumper...

cmosjumper.jpg

As you notice, there are 3 pins. The jumper is connected to the pin on the left and the one in the middle - the pin on the right is unconnected. Remove the jumper from those two pins, and connect it to the middle pin and the one on the right for 30 seconds and put it back at its original position......

eg......

remove the jumper from this position......Pos1-2.jpg...........put it at this position for 30 seconds........Pos2-3.jpg and put it back at its original position.

It doesnt matter what colour the jumper is, and whhether the right and middle or left and middle are connected initially - just remember, change the position as shown for a few seconds and replace it at its original position.

REMEMBER - your pc must be OFF and UNPLUGGED before you do this.

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