Drive 0 not found

[wags2]

We had a bad storm last week but never lost power. We had a few power blinks but computer never shut down. It is a Dell OptiPlex. This morning we tried to boot but it gives us the message Drive 0 (zero) not found. We unplugged from wall for 5 minutes and still won't boot. I unplugged all USB devices to see if that helped but nothing. Any thoughts?

 

[BadBigBen]

Check the cabling on the main drive...

also try that drive as a slave in another PC, to see if it powers up at all and is accessible...

although <blackouts> did not occur, there may have been too many <brownouts> or <dropouts. which may have taken out either the drive, the controller, or the PSU, (PSU? but the PC powers up, you may be thinking. A rail may have become faulty, and although it may power some components, it may not power all... just a thought)...

* A dropout is a momentary (milliseconds to seconds) loss of power typically caused by a temporary fault on a power line. Power is quickly (and sometimes automatically) restored once the fault is cleared.
* A brownout is a drop in voltage in an electrical power supply, so named because it typically causes lights to dim. Systems supplied with three-phase electric power also suffer brownouts if one or more phases are absent, at reduced voltage, or incorrectly phased. Such malfunctions are particularly damaging to electric motors.
* A blackout refers to the total loss of power to an area and is the most severe form of power outage that can occur. Blackouts which result from or result in power stations tripping are particularly difficult to recover from quickly. Outages may last from a few hours to a few weeks depending on the nature of the blackout and the configuration of the electrical network.

source: Wikipedia Art. Power outage

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[wags2]

When I find some time I will try what you suggested. The thing is, we were using the computer to run a printer even after the storm had passed then shut it down for weekend. It is on a power strip, yes I know a UPS is better, and it still had power to it but computer was down all weekend. We had another PC in another room that had to be reset to get it to boot (unplug power for a few minutes did the trick). Seems the least little thing puts these things in the trash heap these days.

 

[BadBigBen]

Can you get into the BIOS, and see there if the DRIVE is being detected at all, or if the BOOT ORDER got whacked...

also try loading the BIOS default settings, sometimes this helps... same for CLR CMOS, should be tried first before loading the default settings...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[wags2]

Well, I took battery out for about 15 to 20 minutes. Restarted and not getting a different message.

Drive 1 not found: Serial ATA, SATA 2
Floppy diskette seek failure.

Could the drive controller be bad? I may have changed some settings in setup just to see what would change so maybe the new message is because of this. I'm scratching my head.

 

[BadBigBen]

Could the drive controller be bad?

Yes, could be but not necessarily...

taking the battery out, is like CLR CMOS, you then have to go back into the BIOS setup, load default settings (F5 usually), then F10 exit and save...

In the BIOS look for the FLOPPY settings, e.g. if you do not have a FLOPPY Drive then disable the thing, the Floppy seek setting should be set to NO or DISABLED (this is a legacy setting for the controller to identify if it is a 5.25" or 3.5" drive)...

what does it say about SATA Drive 0, in the Standard Settings, of the BIOS, e.g. does it recognize the drive at all?

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[wags2]

I found this on the web when searching for a replacement drive.

"When it comes to data recovery one of the most common problems Western Digital(WD) hard drives experience is burnt cuircuit board(PCB). WD drives are very vulnerable to overheating, power surges and streaks. Quite often bad power supply unit combined with power streak is usually enough to fry spindle driver chip on the electronics and make the data inaccessible. Should this occur the computer would reboot or shut down completely, you would normally notice acrid smell of smoke coming from your PC and when powered on the drive would not spin up at all and appear to be completely dead."

Not sure if this is what happened to mine but I don't have time to try everything. There was really not much info on the drive except a couple of apps I can reload. I had a couple of drives lying around but they have different connectors so I guess I will replace with the same drive.

 

[BadBigBen]

Sure, try it with a different drive, drives are dirt cheap (almost), if it works then case closed and you're squared away...

if it doesn't and you don't have the time to troubleshoot further, then just replace the whole machine...

and for future ref. having a surge protector or even better a UPS is always a good idea... ;-)

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"