Hard drive question

[Guest]

Hi,

I realize this is probably not the right place to ask this type of question,
but if anyone has any insight, it would be appreciated.

We have a DELL desktop computer which was running XP Professional. The
computer started to fail while booting. Somehow, it no longer recognizes the
hard drive in the bios when we run setup. Tried replacing the IDE cable
which didn't help. Tested with another hard drive, and the computer
recognized it. The main question here is: does it sound like the original
hard drive has just gone bad, or is it possible a virus could have written
something to the drive to make it unrecognizable to the bios? (The drive
still spins when powered on, just is not recognized). I've also tried many
combinations of master/slave with the other drive, but the old drive is never
recognized.

Any ideas?

Thanks very much

 

[Donny Broome]

Sounds like the original hard drive has died. Happens all the time. If the
machine is still under warranty, Dell will replace it for free.

 

[John Barnett MVP]

sounds like the drive is on its way out. The BIOS recognises other drives
you have installed, so why not this one?

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org

The information in this post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any kind,
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of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this post..

 

[Ghostrider]

Hi,

I realize this is probably not the right place to ask this type of question,
but if anyone has any insight, it would be appreciated.

We have a DELL desktop computer which was running XP Professional. The
computer started to fail while booting. Somehow, it no longer recognizes the
hard drive in the bios when we run setup. Tried replacing the IDE cable
which didn't help. Tested with another hard drive, and the computer
recognized it. The main question here is: does it sound like the original
hard drive has just gone bad, or is it possible a virus could have written
something to the drive to make it unrecognizable to the bios? (The drive
still spins when powered on, just is not recognized). I've also tried many
combinations of master/slave with the other drive, but the old drive is never
recognized.

Any ideas?

Thanks very much

As others have noted, the drive has evidently failed. A
hard drive consists of 2 components, the physical drive
itself that includes the platter(s), head(s), etc., and
a circuit board. Tje circuit board can fail just as easily
as any of the mechanical parts.

 

[Peter A. Stavrakoglou]

Hi,

I realize this is probably not the right place to ask this type of
question,
but if anyone has any insight, it would be appreciated.

We have a DELL desktop computer which was running XP Professional. The
computer started to fail while booting. Somehow, it no longer recognizes
the
hard drive in the bios when we run setup. Tried replacing the IDE cable
which didn't help. Tested with another hard drive, and the computer
recognized it. The main question here is: does it sound like the original
hard drive has just gone bad, or is it possible a virus could have written
something to the drive to make it unrecognizable to the bios? (The drive
still spins when powered on, just is not recognized). I've also tried
many
combinations of master/slave with the other drive, but the old drive is
never
recognized.

Any ideas?

Thanks very much

As the others have said it certainly sounds like you have a bad hard drive.
To double-check, are you able to take the suspected bad drive and put it
into another system to see if it's recognized? Based on what you've already
done, I think it's safe to say the drive is bad but testing it in another
system and finding that the other system will not recognize it either will
confirm that.

 

[Guest]

Thank you very much everyone for all your replies. The help is appreciated.