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I'm not in such a good mood right now, my HD has just burnt out on me 
Everything was working fine until I tried to install VS inside a VMware virtual machine located on that drive. With no warning at all, it dissapeared? Thinking it could be a bug in vista I tried a reboot, but then the BIOS froze at the "Detecting IDE drives" stage. So I can't even boot up while the drive is conected
The drive is a Maxtor 80GB IDE 7200, only 3 years old. Does anybody know what may be wrong with it or how I could repair it? The drive itself is not that important, but there are a few files on it I would not like to lose if it can be helped.
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If the system won't even POST with the drive connected, it's toast. There's pretty much nothing you can do with it, unless you want to spend a lot of money and send the drive to a data recovery company.
Well, after a little more thought, you MIGHT be able to find an identical Maxtor drive and POSSIBLY swap the PCB out. That might get you back up and running...possibly...maybe...
Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic
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Thanks. I don't know exactly what the problem is, but I placed it in a USB caddy. This allowed me access to the files but I keep getting random I/O error's. I recently upgraded my main board to an ASUS M2N-E, which only has one IDE channel. So I have been meaning to replace this drive anyway.
Find an identical you say, funny, It does have a twin. I bought two of them, but the other has so far not shown any signs of problems. But then again that one sit's in the caddy and rarely get's used.
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Just be aware that by breaking the clean room seal to swap PCBs your second drive will be left in terminal condition as well. If you do this, make sure you've moved all the data off it first.
--
Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
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I understand. But for an 80GB maxtor it's not really worth it. I will just try part-ex'ing it for one of the latest models.
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I hope you did NOT mount the drive into the VM. Never do that if the drive is also known to the host. It does not even have to be the System Drive in order to cause serious trouble. Your description (one IDE channel, other drive on USB) sound like it was the System Drive, though.
If you mounted a disk-file, it SHOULD have worked.
In order to see if its just a Windows problem, I would boot the PC using a Linux LiveCD (if one Windows flavour does not recognize it, BartPE probably will neither). Then try finding the device (i.e., start QParted, cfdisk or whatever partitioner your LiveCD offers). If it does not appear there, either, you could still try to low-level-format it from the BIOS, if it is listed there.
Low-Level formatting will cost you your data, though.
If it IS listed in your partition editor, watch if the partition table is listed correctly and if the BOOT-flag is set on the correct partition. Fix, if necessary, then try again.
If all fails, scrap it.
Cheers,
Sebastian
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Contra vim mortem non est medicamen in hortem.
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Yes, I mounted the drive into VM, but it was not the system drive. The drive in question was my old system drive before I changed my MainBoard. I used to have two IDE drives, but my new board only supports one IDE cable, with my DVD-RW I had to move one drive to a usb. At the same time as updating I also bought a SCSI to be used as the system drive.
Anyway, that IDE drive was a spare. I have been using VM for a few years now and never had problems while mounting drives and sharing them between the host and client. But, I did recently upgrade to a newer version of VM, so that could very well be the problem.
The drive seems to be working ok now, and while it is I'm going to sell it. I just got another SCSI, so really, it's of no use to me.
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can I tell if my hard drive is good or not (at least capable of spinning) while I am still trying to figure out if the motherboard is bad?
And when you say power it up the motherboard, do you mean only leave the cable between PS and the motherboard? what should it happen?
Thanks,
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mhp130 wrote: can I tell if my hard drive is good or not (at least capable of spinning) while I am still trying to figure out if the motherboard is bad?
If the drive spins up on the new power supply, then it spins. That doesn't mean it works!
mhp130 wrote: And when you say power it up the motherboard, do you mean only leave the cable between PS and the motherboard? what should it happen?
Yes. The machine should startup and you should see the Power-On Self Test (POST) as you normally would. If you don't get anything, not even any beeps from the speaker, the MoBo is dead and that new power supply isn't going to do you much good.
Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic
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Thank you so much Dave,
I think I am getting to the end of this. Unfortunately, the verdict so far is PS and Motherboard are both dead. Even this is quite fun with you guys helps, I am about to wrap it up. I am going to shop for a smaller size PC and if the HD(ATA) is still good mostly likely it won't fit in the newer PC's case. Anyway I can still use it(eg externally?) . Appreciate you guys helps.
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Unless you buy a case for a miniITX board (square, only as long as the backplate connectors with a single PCI slot), any case you get will have space for 3.5" drives. The switch from parallel to serial interface did not change the physical size at all.
--
Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
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I recently purchased an HP DV-8000t laptop, nice box and am thiking about installing Vista on it,which led me to the thought, why don't I just add a new HD, Vista on one, XP on the other (just in case....) HP web site indicates you can clearly do this with this model, but they are very vague about what/how. They suggest calling some 800 number for a "bracket" and a disk.
When I asked do I have to buy this disk from them they said no, but make sure you get a 4200 RPM disk. so the question is this:
Do you think there is a real good reason for this or can I get a 5400, or 7200 for a whole lot less someplace else other than HP.
The second question would be what is this "bracket" they mention? and would it also be easier/cheaper to get someplace else?
Thanks
Mike
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just a guess, but the bracket's probably used to secure the drive in the laptop. If you're not planning to switch regularly you can probably un/rescrew it every time. If switching regularly the bracket would probably make things easier. IF you can boot off of usb/firewire that would probably be a cheaper option. Id suggest trying to remove your existing disk to see what the bracket is actually involved in doing. I also have a very hard time believing the notebook won't talk to 5400/7200 RPM drives.
--
Rules of thumb should not be taken for the whole hand.
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Hi,
I need some help here. I have a Compaq Pasario running celeron with XP professional. I was away for 5 days and my PC has been in stanby mode. After I came back, my PC does not responde to any actions - keystrokes,reboot,unplug.
The screen is out and the light is in orange. It does not take key strokes. The light on the pc itself is blinking green, I press and hold the power button(cold boot) and it still does not do any thing. I unplug the power cable wait for hours until the blinking green light goes away and plug the cable back again, the green light comes back and still nothing happens,
Anyone can give me some help what seems to be happening and how can I do about it?
Thanks,
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Well, it sounds like you have three choices. You have either a bad processor, motherboard, or power supply.
Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic
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I doubt it's a bad processor, because that wouldn't hold a charge big enough to keep the computer running. It could be the motherboard, though.
Trinity: Neo... nobody has ever done this before.
Neo: That's why it's going to work.
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Well, his description of the problem amounted to "turn it on and nothing happens". After doing this crap for over 21 years, I can tell you that a bad power supply, bad BIOS, bad motherboard, AND a bad CPU are the possibilities.
BTW, putting a suspected bad power supply into a known good PC is a bad idea. If the power supply blew the motherboard, you'll just potentially end up blowing another motherboard.
Testing the voltages comming off the power supply is the best option, but in the absense of a voltage meter, replacing the power supply with a known good power supply is the next best option.
Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic
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Dave Kreskowiak wrote: BTW, putting a suspected bad power supply into a known good PC is a bad idea. If the power supply blew the motherboard, you'll just potentially end up blowing another motherboard.
Good point, I never thought of that.
Trinity: Neo... nobody has ever done this before.
Neo: That's why it's going to work.
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You're both wrong - It's obviously the internally adjustable throwout deframulation transistor.
"Why don't you tie a kerosene-soaked rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt, 1997
-----
"...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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I covered that!!  It's on the bloody motherboard! But since I know nothing of his surface-mount soldering skills, I didn't want to walk him through replacing it. He could do more harm than good, especially if he gets the streams crossed! Oh God - then what??
Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic
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Are the drives spinning? When you unplug your pc, is there anything connected to your computer (through USB) that gets power?
If you can unplug your pc, and the running light is still on, then that would have to be the power supply.
Trinity: Neo... nobody has ever done this before.
Neo: That's why it's going to work.
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The drives were not spinning. It feel like all the input devices are disable. When I unplug it, it still has keyborad,mouse and phone set plugged in. The green light gets dimmer and dimmer and goes off after an hour or so. I think this is probably the feature to pretect power out but might turn out screw it up for me.
Thanks for the replies, any other thoguths are greatly appreciated,
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Well, it sounds like you should try replacing your power supply. But before you do, I would suggest taking your old one out and testing it in another computer (if you can). This way you can make sure it is the power supply, and not something else.
Trinity: Neo... nobody has ever done this before.
Neo: That's why it's going to work.
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STOP!! Before you follow Matrix's advice about putting a suspected bad power supply into a good machine...
Think about it. If the voltages and levels comming out of a PS are bad, what are the chances that they could blow anything you plug that PS into?? Pretty good...
You NEVER put a suspected bad PS into a known good machine. You always replace a suspected bad PS with a known good PS and see what happens. If the PS is bad, you won't blow a good motherboard. If the motherboard, or something else, is bad, the good PS will protect itself from an overload and shut itself off.
Dave Kreskowiak
Microsoft MVP - Visual Basic
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Thanks,
I will get a good PS and see how it goes. just to get my knowledge a bit more on this. The reset button seems to connect to the motherboard, when it is pressed and hold, a signal is sent to the motherboard to resstart the system. Am I right? If I am right,this could explain there is a possibility that the motherboard is bad. But the DVD button is not working as well, the DVD looks like was connected to PS directly, does it lead to that most likely is the PS?
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