It is my harddrive?

[zipp080]

Ok, last night if you saw my post I spent all night attempting to figure out why my computer would not recognize my harddrive in my bios.

Well this is how it was. I could hook up my harddrive ALONE and the bios would see it. If I hooked up my CDROM with it, then it only recognized the CDRW and not the HDD. I hooked it up alone as a secondary master, and as a slave to the HDD, and both ways it never recognized both. And the funny thing was, I have 5 ribbon cables, and only one of them seemed to ever allow me to recognize the HDD.

So I called a tech and we were on the phone for quite some time. He thought it was my CDRW that was causing the problem. So after about 2 hours of switching around the HDD and CDRW, I went and got a CDRW from another computer and hooked it up. Well the same thing happened. BUT, after I got off the phone with the tech, I did end up getting the HDD and CDRW to both be recognized in the BIOS. So I thought good deal, I began downloading XP boot disks on another comp and I come back to stick them in, and reboot, and it no longer recognized the harddrive again.

Anyways after about another 10 boot ups messing with the harddrive and CDRW by changing them around on the primary and secondary and slave, it starts making this wierd "CLINK CLINK CLINK" everytime I boot. And in the BIOS it allows me to recognize it alone with nothing else connected, but now it says "MAXTOR RIGEL" and it shows it as a "0GB" HDD. Well I search on the net and it says it does that when the HDD is failing and no longer can read the disks in the HDD itself.

Well what my question is, was it my HDD all along that was causing it to only be recognized every 15 or so bootups, and only when it was by itself. (It didnt recognize it EVERY time by itself, only 1 out of every 5 or so bootups)? Could it be my harddrive that was making it do that? Or could it be more of my motherboard IDE slots doing that? AND did my HDD fail because I had reconnected and switched it around so many times (50+) and rebooted, or did it fail because it was actually the problem in the first place?

 

[ImpetusEra]

Probbaly hard drive. I have seen a Maxtor do the exact thing before it completely died.

 

[zipp080]

I switched over both the HDD and the CDRW from my old system. Could it not recognize them both because of the drivers I had on my HDD from my old system maybe? I was planning on reformatting and installing OS while it was in my new system.

I am thinking not though, because two differnet times I did in fact get them to both be recognized, but once I booted down, and booted back up, they no longer were, only the CDRW.

 

[ANFPS26]

CLINK CLINK CLINK" usually is a sign that the hard drive is dead, as ImpetusEra says. Yes, it could have been a bad drive all along. Try a different hard drive. That's the only way you'll know for sure.

Jim

 

[GrowingHaze]

That clink your hearing, right after, do you hear a faint sound somewhat like a cd spinning up? If so, it is a power issue. I had a similar experiance with a Power Supply Unit which had bad connections. If your PSU is less than 300 watts consider upgrading it. For right now, try connecting your HD and CD to it's own power string. Also, if you have a floppy plugged in, unplug it until you need it (with computer off of course).

-Growing Haze

Gates giveth, Gates taketh away.

 

[zipp080]

I've had the floppy unplugged the whole time. And I am using a 400W p/s.

 

[ceh4702]

Even a 400 watt power supply can go bad. It may just be the drive a lot of IBM hard drives made wierd noises and then died. Some other manufacturers have had problems and not been very forthcoming with replacements. IDE drives do go bad from time to time. Excessive heat can kill them also. Good air flow is nice.

If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[happydownloader]

One thing I don't know is what size is the hdd your trying to install? Some older MB's will only recignize hdd's smaller then 137gigs and older ones only 80gigs
Also make sure that you are using 80pin IDE cables ( ATA 100 or 133 ) and not the 40pin cables ( ATA 66 )
Also in your bios try enabling smartdrive.
One last thing to try also is setting what you have on that IDE is CS ( cable select ) instead of master and slave.
That has solved some problems with certain hdd, cd rom combos

 

[zipp080]

Alright thanks for the help. I was using 80 wire and it is only a 20gb hdd. The harddrive did in fact die, theres no question about that. I already have a replacement coming and I'm sending the old one back. It was 3 years old in 3 months, but I had a 3 year warranty on it.

My question was though, did the harddrive die because I had been messing with it so much, or was it just on its last dying leg and finally gave out. Because either way, the bios was not recognizing the drive, only 1 time out of every 20 or so bootups it would be recognized. And the hdd was not making those noises in the beggining, only the very end when I finally gave up and called the manufacture. So it's either the HDD that was causing it to not be recognized by the BIOS, or it is the motherboard itself that was doing it, and thats what killed the HDD.

 

[ImpetusEra]

Did you drop it? It was probably gonna die anyway.

 

[zipp080]

Nope, never dropped it. Had it sitting on the case the entire time, just kept unplugging the ribbon cables on and off and switching in a CDRW with it.

I've posted on a few message boards about the problem and I am quite suprised that this isn't a common or known problem anybody really knows the answer to. I mean all that was happening was the motherboard would only recognize the harddrive 1 out of 20 bootups or so. I would think people would of came across this problem before and know if it is the HDD or the motherbaord IDE ports doing this.

 

[ImpetusEra]

You had it sitting on the case? Circuitry side down? They can short out by doing that, I speak from experience, lol. You could always try it in another system and see what happens.

 

[zipp080]

Hrm, I did try it in another system. Same thing occured. And I do not believe I had the circuitry down. I might of though that one time that it finally started doing it, but pretty sure I didn't :X

 

[rclarke250]

99 percent of the time it's going to be the hard drive that dies. The system board controllers are very hardy. I've only seen a handfull of ports go bad in over 18 years of building and repairing computers. I have seen where a power surge has taken out both, And you can see a chip on the hdd has been fried. But that is rare.