Hard drive keeping PC from powering up!!

[niteprlr]

Hi all, I have seen it all! I have a Maxtor HD in my PC. One
day the PC won't boot, won't even power up; the power LED lights up,
but the power supply fan won't even spin! The likely thing to do was
to check all power connections, which were ok. I then replaced the
power supply and got the same results. I went ahead and unplugged all
of the devices and replugged them in one at a time. When I got to the
hard drive, BAM! the problem resurfaced. I tried replacing the ribbon
cable, tried setting it as the slave, and tried it in a different
system all with the same result. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I'm a total idiot and didn't backup the data on the HD ( I guess I
deserve what I get ). But any advice would be greatly appreciated.
TIA
-Robert

 

[rstlne]

Hi all, I have seen it all! I have a Maxtor HD in my PC. One
day the PC won't boot, won't even power up; the power LED lights up,
but the power supply fan won't even spin! The likely thing to do was
to check all power connections, which were ok. I then replaced the
power supply and got the same results. I went ahead and unplugged all
of the devices and replugged them in one at a time. When I got to the
hard drive, BAM! the problem resurfaced. I tried replacing the ribbon
cable, tried setting it as the slave, and tried it in a different
system all with the same result. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I'm a total idiot and didn't backup the data on the HD ( I guess I
deserve what I get ). But any advice would be greatly appreciated.
TIA
-Robert

Unplug everything except for mobo/processor/1 stick of ram/video card
Remove the rest of the cards.. Then try to start the pc.. It's possible that
the power supply isnt delivering enough juice to start the system

 

[Rod Speed]

Hi all, I have seen it all! I have a Maxtor HD in my PC. One
day the PC won't boot, won't even power up; the power LED lights up,
but the power supply fan won't even spin! The likely thing to do was
to check all power connections, which were ok. I then replaced the
power supply and got the same results. I went ahead and unplugged all
of the devices and replugged them in one at a time. When I got to the
hard drive, BAM! the problem resurfaced. I tried replacing the ribbon
cable, tried setting it as the slave, and tried it in a different
system all with the same result. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Most likely the hard drive has just died and it presents too much
of a load/short to the power supply so it shuts down at power
on time when it sees the high load on the power supply.

I'm a total idiot and didn't backup the data
on the HD ( I guess I deserve what I get ).

You do indeed. How big is the drive ? With the older
ones you may be able to swap the logic card on the
drive with an identical model and get the data back.

But any advice would be greatly appreciated.

You could slash your wrists |-(

 

[Trent©]

Hi all, I have seen it all! I have a Maxtor HD in my PC. One
day the PC won't boot, won't even power up; the power LED lights up,
but the power supply fan won't even spin! The likely thing to do was
to check all power connections, which were ok. I then replaced the
power supply and got the same results. I went ahead and unplugged all
of the devices and replugged them in one at a time. When I got to the
hard drive, BAM! the problem resurfaced. I tried replacing the ribbon
cable, tried setting it as the slave, and tried it in a different
system all with the same result. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I'm a total idiot and didn't backup the data on the HD ( I guess I
deserve what I get ). But any advice would be greatly appreciated.
TIA
-Robert

You simply need a new hard drive.

Good luck.


Have a nice week...

Trent

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[Raymond Sirois]

Hi all, I have seen it all! I have a Maxtor HD in my PC. One
day the PC won't boot, won't even power up; the power LED lights up,
but the power supply fan won't even spin! The likely thing to do was
to check all power connections, which were ok. I then replaced the
power supply and got the same results. I went ahead and unplugged all
of the devices and replugged them in one at a time. When I got to the
hard drive, BAM! the problem resurfaced. I tried replacing the ribbon
cable, tried setting it as the slave, and tried it in a different
system all with the same result. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I'm a total idiot and didn't backup the data on the HD ( I guess I
deserve what I get ). But any advice would be greatly appreciated.
TIA
-Robert

Sounds to me as if you've got a short in the hard drive somewhere, and
it's causing the drive to draw too much current from the power supply.
Solution: Buy a new hard drive.
Raymond Sirois
SysOp: The Lost Chord BBS
607-733-5745
telnet://thelostchord.dns2go.com:6000

 

[jeff findley]

When I got to the
hard drive, BAM! the problem resurfaced. I tried replacing the ribbon
cable, tried setting it as the slave, and tried it in a different
system all with the same result. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Isn't it obvious? The hard drive is dead.

I'm a total idiot and didn't backup the data on the HD ( I guess I
deserve what I get ). But any advice would be greatly appreciated.

We learn more from our failures than we do our successes.

Replace the hard drive and add a CD-RW (or *something*) to the system
to let you backup critical data. Neither component is very expensive
these days.

Jeff

 

[DaveW]

Either the harddrive has failed, OR the IDE controller for that channel on
the motherboard has failed.