No Hard drive found...XP

[Guest]

I recently got a no hard drive found on my computer. The evening before
everything was going good.
I did unplug hard drive and plugged it back in.
It looked good everything was working.
I hit restore and Ran my Trend virus scan.
Left the room for a minute and when I came back the computer had rebooted-
and that's all it wrote. Nothing I tried would bring it back.
Windows XP came back that it couldn't find the hard drive..
It has new motherboard, CPU, fans, CD/DVD, the only thing not changed is the
hard drive.
Also in BIOS no hard drive is detected.
MY fear is a virus or the hard drive just crashed.
What suggestions do you have?
Thank you

 

[Bob Harris]

It is not clear exactly what you did, but it sounds like you essentially
built a new PC, maybe in the same case, and kept only one old hard drive.
Is there another, newer hard drive? I ask, since you say that XP can not
find the hard drive. It is hard to run XP without having it installed on a
hard drive. Unless, of course, you mean that the XP setup prgram can not
find the hard drive?

But forget XP for the moment. If the BIOS can not see the hard drive, XP
will never see it. Work to fix the BIOS-to-disk problem first. The primary
reasons that the BIOS can not see a hard drive are (1) bad or loose signal
cable, (2) bad or loose power cable. Try firmly inserting both cables. If
that fails, try new cables.

Less common problems include (3) bad IDE controller, (4) bad disk. Try
attaching the disk to the other controller. Most PCs have at least two.
You migh need to disconnect a CD drive to use the other controller. If it
is the only hard drive in the computer, it should be assigned a master
position on the IDE cable. To test for a bad-disk, install it in a known
good computer. Or, install a known-good disk in the current computer. The
first is a direct test, the second is really a test of the disk controller,
not the current disk.

Far less common problems include attaching the disk to a RAID controller,
instead of to a plain IDE controller. In the case of a RAID controller, you
may need to build a RAID array before even the BIOS will recognize the disk.
If this is a stand-alone disk, then it needs to be in an arrary by itself.
That is somethime called "just a bunch of disks", or JBOD. Read the
motherboard manual for hints on its RAID, if any, or at least to be sure you
have atached the disk to a plain IDE controller.

Once the BIOS sees the disk, the XP setup program should also see the disk.
The exceptions would be RAID, SCSI, or SATA disks. For those you need to
provide the XP setup program with sopecial drivers that came with the
motherboard. These must be on a floppy, not on a CD. And, you need to hit
F6 early in the XP installation process to trigger reading the drivers.
Again, this only applies to RAID, SCSI, or SATA disks.

By the way, whenever you change the motherboard, it is recommended that you
also do a "repair" install of XP to get the correct hardware drivers. Ths
includes drivers for the disk controller, and just about everything else.
Here are some links about a repair install:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341



http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm



http://www.extremetech.com/print_article/0,3998,a=23979,00.asp

 

[Guest]

--
rjs

It is not clear exactly what you did, but it sounds like you essentially
built a new PC, maybe in the same case, and kept only one old hard drive.
Is there another, newer hard drive? I ask, since you say that XP can not
find the hard drive. It is hard to run XP without having it installed on a
hard drive. Unless, of course, you mean that the XP setup prgram can not
find the hard drive?

But forget XP for the moment. If the BIOS can not see the hard drive, XP
will never see it. Work to fix the BIOS-to-disk problem first. The primary
reasons that the BIOS can not see a hard drive are (1) bad or loose signal
cable, (2) bad or loose power cable. Try firmly inserting both cables. If
that fails, try new cables.

Less common problems include (3) bad IDE controller, (4) bad disk. Try
attaching the disk to the other controller. Most PCs have at least two.
You migh need to disconnect a CD drive to use the other controller. If it
is the only hard drive in the computer, it should be assigned a master
position on the IDE cable. To test for a bad-disk, install it in a known
good computer. Or, install a known-good disk in the current computer. The
first is a direct test, the second is really a test of the disk controller,
not the current disk.

Far less common problems include attaching the disk to a RAID controller,
instead of to a plain IDE controller. In the case of a RAID controller, you
may need to build a RAID array before even the BIOS will recognize the disk.
If this is a stand-alone disk, then it needs to be in an arrary by itself.
That is somethime called "just a bunch of disks", or JBOD. Read the
motherboard manual for hints on its RAID, if any, or at least to be sure you
have atached the disk to a plain IDE controller.

Once the BIOS sees the disk, the XP setup program should also see the disk.
The exceptions would be RAID, SCSI, or SATA disks. For those you need to
provide the XP setup program with sopecial drivers that came with the
motherboard. These must be on a floppy, not on a CD. And, you need to hit
F6 early in the XP installation process to trigger reading the drivers.
Again, this only applies to RAID, SCSI, or SATA disks.

By the way, whenever you change the motherboard, it is recommended that you
also do a "repair" install of XP to get the correct hardware drivers. Ths
includes drivers for the disk controller, and just about everything else.
Here are some links about a repair install:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341



http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm



http://www.extremetech.com/print_article/0,3998,a=23979,00.asp




Yes I basically rebuilt. With same hard drive.

Had everything up and running for about a month.
This just happened a couple of days ago.
That's why I'm thinking it's a virus.
I had all the updates and new drivers. Like I said it was running good.
That's why it's fustating.
My Hard drive had 17gig out of 40 gig used. Was doing good.
Do they just go out.