My hard drive doesn't appear in BIOS

[tgoose]

I don't remember exactly what I was doing at the time, but earlier today Windows dealt me a blue screen of death about a kernel panic. Not really thinking much of it, I rebooted and was confused when the computer tried to boot from the network. I realised after another reboot that the drive isn't in the BIOS at all; it just doesn't appear. Booting from a Windows installation CD and several Linux ones didn't help, and the only reason I can use my computer now is because I'm on a live distribution, which is hardly ideal. The computer also makes little clicking noises while it's trying to read the drive, which doesn't sound promising...

I would like to know if there's any way of fixing this without buying a new drive. There's little important data on that drive (apart from the first quarter of an essay due in two days, whoops!), so if push comes to shove I could replace it. I'd certainly rather not though, of course!

 

[paparazi]

I guess you could check the obvious connections, replace the IDE cable and perhaps connect as slave in another PC but if the drive isn't seen in this or by another machines bios there is little you can do, it's failed and will need replacing.
Martin


We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[BadBigBen]

I second that Paparazi...

Ben

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

 

[vacunita]

I third it.

The clicking sounds are a sure sign of hard drive failure.

If you haven't so far try putting the drive in another PC and see if it will be recognized. that way, you can at east get the essay.

But buying a new drive is certainly a must do at this point.



----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[tgoose]

Well, thanks for everyone's help, and it seems the drive is pretty much doomed. I don't have access to another computer I could take apart, or the time to work out how to connect everything up so I'll just have to abandon it for the time being. I'll have to see if I can keep running on this live CD until I've got time to replace the drive! When I've written this essay, there won't really be anything else I need to keep from the old drive anyway, since everything more than a couple of weeks old is backed up on external drives.

What should I be looking for, specification-wise, in a replacement laptop hard drive?

 

[paparazi]

Hiya!
This is a good review and should give you some pointers:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2006/..._at_up_to_160_gb_put_under_the_microscope_uk/

Martin

We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[directlyconnected]

Which live distro are you using? I have Morphix and Knoppix---like Knoppix more, but more buggy than Morphix.

 

[waycoolgal]

Try unpluging power supply and replugging it back in. I don't know why but that has brought my HD back to life several times. Eventually I got a new PSU.

 

[Aussie2]

Could try the drive on a different ide controler