cannot detect hard drive

[Timax45]

win xp home

My friend is having problems with his pc and asked me If I could help. He
has a rather outdated 350mhz 6.4 gb 256 RAM machine with xp home sp2, he has
broadband connection as well.

He first called me when he was having problems with OE not being able to
recognise his Windows Adress book, later on that day he couldn't open his e
mails although he could still receive them. I went away to do some research
on potential causes and then he called me up to say that he had restarted
his machine and it wouldn't boot into windows. I had a look and it wasn't
detecting any sign of the HD, I even got a set of xp boot disks from the MS
site and they said that there was no HD.

I opened up the machine and found that the only thing I could physically see
that could be wrong was that the main power supply fan was not working (but
why would that have an effect on the bios not recognising HD?)

I have researched google with this problem and it could be one of many
problems, ie boot sector virus, damaged HD, faulty power supply, etc etc.

What do you guys suggest? My friend runs our village mag and has all his
publisher files and contacts etc on the c drive and cannot really afford to
lose them.

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Timax

Your friend should think about buying a new computer.. at the very least, a
new tower.. if the fan in the power supply is not working, this would cause
the power supply to overheat and shut down without warning.. over a period
of time, Windows would object most strongly to being shut down in this way..

Tell your friend to consider getting a new power supply as soon as possible,
back up as many files as possible, and then buy a computer that will prove
to be more reliable and better able to cope with the rigours of every day
use..

 

[Guest]

As you have identified; the data on the disk is more valuable than a new PC
itself and needs to be recovered.

First thing would be to attach the disk to another working PC and attempt to
copy any data onto the ther Hard Drive or burn it to DVD or CD.

This obviously serves two purposes: a] identify that the drive is working
properly and b] backup important documents etc.

If he cannot recover any data then buy a whole new PC.

If he can recover the data then he could also buy a new PC or spend time
[time = money] troubleshooting and buying replacement components.

1. Buy a new Power Supply. If the fan doesn't work, then maybe the PSU
isn't putting out the correct voltage levels and the PC won't run properly.
2. If the PSU is replaced and the BIOS doesn't correctly identify all the
attached devices [eg Hard Drive] then you're on the track of 'do I replace
the Mobo?': then if the answer is yes, then:
3. Replace Mobo and
4. Replace CPU and
5. Replace DRAM

by this time it could have been cheaper to replace the 'box' in the first
place.

 

[John]

win xp home

My friend is having problems with his pc and asked me If I could help. He
has a rather outdated 350mhz 6.4 gb 256 RAM machine with xp home sp2, he has
broadband connection as well.

He first called me when he was having problems with OE not being able to
recognise his Windows Adress book, later on that day he couldn't open his e
mails although he could still receive them. I went away to do some research
on potential causes and then he called me up to say that he had restarted
his machine and it wouldn't boot into windows. I had a look and it wasn't
detecting any sign of the HD, I even got a set of xp boot disks from the MS
site and they said that there was no HD.

I opened up the machine and found that the only thing I could physically see
that could be wrong was that the main power supply fan was not working (but
why would that have an effect on the bios not recognising HD?)

I have researched google with this problem and it could be one of many
problems, ie boot sector virus, damaged HD, faulty power supply, etc etc.

What do you guys suggest? My friend runs our village mag and has all his
publisher files and contacts etc on the c drive and cannot really afford to
lose them.

Replace the power supply if you want but if the BIOS doesn't see the
drive its probably toast as well. But it could be the motherboard or
disk controller or even a bad cable. A comp. can always be resurrected
but at what cost in hit and miss parts replacement? Unless you have a
store of parts to try out either take it to a shop that can do actual
testing or tell your friend to get a new comp. is probably the best
advise you can give.

John