Hard Drive not booting up

[Rokzum]

I woke up today to my computer not loading up. So i just manually reset my tower thinking okay maybe its my cd i left in. After letting the boot up do its thing I notice it said Hard Disk not detected. Then I got another screen and after a minute or two it was saying something failed and asking me to select what needs to be booted up, of course my HDD isn't listed. I check the cables to make sure they're not loose, and tried again. But no luck.. :\ Anyone know whats going on? And what can I do to get it up and running?

[Deangelo]

I'd check if that HDD works in another PC, or if anything else works in place of that HDD (try connecting your CD-ROM or something else on HDD's SATA / power connectors). If other stuff works on those connectors - HDD died. If not - power/motherboard problems. Or cable problem (maybe...). You could also check for correct voltages there if you have a multimeter or a voltmeter at least.

[Rokzum]

The cables to this hard drive are different than the other PC in my house. My computer is newer and has thinner cables than my old PC.

[Dizey]

It sound like it might be HDD failure.

How long have you had the system? Where did you buy it?

[Deangelo]

The cables to this hard drive are different than the other PC in my house. My computer is newer and has thinner cables than my old PC.

So it has SATA, not IDE connectors. Then connect the CD-ROM onto those cables and check if it works. Or connect the HDD to a different set of cables. It could be a HDD failure, though those come with a set of problems before the failure (sometimes fails to boot, read/write errors, file curruption etc.) or a noisy death. Of course, sometimes they just die.

[OhpUldum]

Sounds like you need to replace a hard drive dude.

[Rokzum]

I got the computer from Alienware February 2009. The hard drive is Seagate 500GB 7200RPM 16MB cache. Yeah they are SATA connectors. Friend of mine told me to take a listen to the HDD but doesnt sound abnormal. I put the windows disk in to see if the program picks up the HDD and it doesn't. So when they just die like that are you able to pull files off them still once youget a new HDD?

[Rokzum]

Well my step daughter has decided to let me use her HDD. Its 500GB not sure the brand atm. I tried hooking it up and the monitor didnt seem to want to reconize it(just flashed as if it were asleep) So i reboot the machine, and now the USB ports dont seem to work. i tried all 8 and my keyboard doesnt work on any. I plugged an ipod in and it lights up but doesnt say its charging. Anyone care to walk me thru setting this or know whats going on with it? Also her HDD has some partition HP stuff loading on, will that be a problem or just Downloading new drivers okay once i can get it to load?

[bohapjut]

u have corrupted hard drive, need to go to store to get a new one

[Rokzum]

yeah i got a new one (well stepdaughters) but it works. Just the keyboard... well any keyboard doesnt seem to work as i posted above.

---------- Post added 2011-09-08 at 12:40 PM ----------

Anyone work for geeksquad? Was thinking about taking it in, depending on how much they'd charge to look at it.