F#*!ing Hard Drives I restarted my pc last night and whilst it was doing post it didn't find any primary IDE drive (ie my hard drive). I checked the connections, all fine, the HD light was also constantly red whilst the pc was on. I went into the BIOS to auto-detect the drive (it was taking a minute or two to go into the BIOS too), it couldn't find it, but I also noticed some BIOS settings had mysteriously changed (it was no longer over-clocked but had reset to auto for the fsb ). A few more failed restarts and checking the BIOS (BIOS also resetting again - I was playing about with the overclock to try and work out why it was resetting, but it kept going back to auto), until magically it detected the drive, but s.l.o.w.l.y... then after post, blank screen for two minutes, then xp loading screen for two seconds then fucking blue screen saying there is a problem with the disk (poss virus, poss boot sector etc messages including what looked like a memory ref). I luckily had just bought a spare drive, so whacked that in and no probs. But I'm fucking pissed off that I've lost 120gig of data (mostly porn ). Been googling but I can't find anything useful - I doubt the drive is kaput cos it's only a couple of months old and had no probs with it at all. I can't try a boot disk because it's only detected the drive twice in about 50 restarts. I don't want to hook it up as a slave in case it is a fucking virus and will knack the new one up (probs not possible but I'm paranoid). Anybody got any clue whether a virus could do this (stop a HD from being recognized and alter the BIOS)? Or owt else?
Been playing about but still no joy. It won't work on the primary IDE master or slave, nor on secondary IDE too. Tried playing about with jumpers, tried a different IDE cable, tried some fucking voodoo on the wee shite... If I whack it on as slave with this HD as master it doesn't recognise it, but it takes about 5 mins for windows to load up which is quite strange. Nowt in device manager tho. The bastard's still spinning, but no weird clicks or owt. It's a frigging baracuda as well, not really known for having problems. I'm going to fix it with a hammer soon.
Two months old and still under warranty... Don't really want to replace it as it has a lot of really important shit on it (which is why I just purchased the other drive - to back it up, sod's law...). Since there's no clicking or owt - I'm taking it the rotor motor and pick-up arms aren't shot. I'm guessing the firmware's fucked. No idea how to sort it tho, so will be doing a bit of studying before giving up on it.
re-reading what uve tried like its bloody weird! so it doesnt work as primary/secondary master or slave? uve tried known working ide cables yeah? silly question i know!! u got another machine u cud try the drive in? maybe its jus had a fall out with the hardware in that box :spangled: cud be a way to save ur data at least!
Tried other primary IDE cables, as well as secondary just in case. New HD works fine so guessing IDE controller and BIOS are fine (apart from the BIOS doing some funny resetting - see above). I need to grab a floppy drive from somewhere and try flashing the BIOS too - doubt it'll do any good tho. Gonna try it in other machine when I've put it back together (other box, not HD! Haven't smashed the fucker yet ). Thanks for advice too Bri - I'm gonna need all I can cos this has got me absolutely stumped...
www.bootdisks.com will do u for a dos bootdisk to flash yer bios i had a similar prob with my last drive, a 60gigger jus started going sooooooooooo slow, no weird noises or anything, then it eventually went, the bearings were gone. i wud try it in another box tho definately - jus out of curioisity at least!
Cheers, used that website before Got no floppy drive tho at mo The HD didn't act in any way untoward before it threw a seven... weird...
It all seems a bit suss that ur BIOS is starting to go a bit funny at the same time tho.. I hate stuff like this - does ur head right in!!!!
I've heard of CMOS viruses before, but I'm sure that can't be the case if this HD is fine. My head's not getting too done in with this at mo, just necked a coupla cans and off out in a min to watch the second half. Think I'll get some prozac before attempting anything else with it
