| Author | Message | ||
     Just_ziptab |
My new damned computer stalls. Nothing disappears,just nothing works for 20 seconds or so..all the while, I hear a steady and slight tick coming from the drive. Then like magic,it all works fine for the rest of the evening. Third time it happened and it DIED! I can't do anything with it,no matter what mode I start it in.Hard drive went bad? I believe it is a FOXCOM hard drive.About 4 months old.  Fortunately,I keep my feathers numbered for just such an emergency....as well as a back up PC. CRAP! | ||
| Xb12xmike |
It does sounds like your hd failed or is failing. open case, check all hd connections, unplug and replug it back in. If you can get it to work, start saving/backing up, get external usb drive to store your important data asap. Thats all I can think at the moment. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Thanks! OK,just did that and started it in normal mode. It went to the usual "Windows XP" starting window with the green scrolling status bar for a few moments and then went to the "blue screen of death".Guess it's done. Haven't really lost anything except fun stuff for bookmarks and all my emails......those of course,were removed from the server.When the last computer started to go lame,I saved all my desktop icons and bookmarks to my yahoo mail account.........so I can always find lost goodies there Guess I'll go out in the garage and pout while I polish the primary cover on Suzie Q. | ||
| Pwnzor |
Wait... you said it was a new computer... but you're running Windows XP? I'm not slamming it, I still prefer XP over Vista/7 for the simple fact that I've hacked and modded it all to hell and it serves my needs. Just curious, is the whole computer new, or just the drive? | ||
| Froggy |
Yea that hard drive is toast. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Yep,new. Custom build with floppy drive.CD burner and XP. Love XP.Very comfortable with it because it does what I want/need with out the learning curve BS of any other OS. Floppy? Yeah,that's what I saved all my important stuff on over the years..before I got a burner.I have a lot of old pictures on floppys too.The PC I am using now is Ubuntu.....works great,but not friendly to "me". | ||
| Glitch |
Not so fast there... Did Windows just do an update? If so you may need to uninstall the update. I had to do this to Charlie's computer not too long ago. Although he didn't get the ticking. It did stall at the driver list like the picture you posted. You'll have to use the recovery console. The instructions you'll need are on the Windows Knowledge Base. Good Luck! | ||
| Piotr12 |
I'm with Froggy. Clicking HD is a sign of failure. | ||
| Indy_bueller |
Agreed. The "clicking" indicates hard drive failure. So does the "Blue screen of death", depending on what the words on the screen are telling you. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Well,it's toast. Can't get it to do much of anything,cept give me a blank screen.I'm two thumb screws away from taking out the hard drive. Guess I'll pop it out and take it to the local shop and have them take a peek. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Go to a working computer, then download "Ubuntu Desktop". Burn that to a CD. Take that CD to your problematic computer, and boot from (probably hit F12 on initial system POST after you hit the on switch). Boot Ubuntu in "try ubuntu with no changes to your system" mode. It will probably kick up a message after it comes up telling you your hard drive is in imminent risk of failure. If not, there is an easy way to start the tool that pulls up the disk status (from SMART info on IDE hard drives... been there for a decade, windows *still* can't be bothered to check it). That'll help isolate hardware versus software problems. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
I have a UBUNTU disk. I'll try that. Thanks! | ||
| Fordrox |
if in fact the HDD is dying and it is heat related IE: works fine for a few minutes if computer has been left off for several hours. if that is the case, pull the HDD out and place it in the freezer for a few hours. remove it plug it in and boot, immediately start backing up your files on another drive. you may only get 1 shot with this method. | ||
| Indy_bueller |
Just make sure it isn't wet when you plug it in, if you don't mind me stating the obvious. Also, make sure you unplug the power cord before plugging in/unplugging anything, and ground yourself before you touch anything inside the PC. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I forget the name of the utility that pulls the SMART data... generally it just pops up on boot when the disk is bad. I had to find it once and it wasn't hard to track down on the Ubuntu GUI... let me know if you can't find it and I'll reboot and hunt it up. I saw one disk report a log of the highest temperatures it has seen. Neat stuff. I don't mind rebooting ubuntu, but getting XP booted again (now that we have Semantic Endpoint Encryption) is now a 7 to 15 minute process, so I avoid it when I can...  | ||
| Just_ziptab |
I just tried the UBUNTU disc with"try UBUNTU with no changes to your system" mode. It looked like it was going to work with the UBUNTU logo and the status bar showing it loading........then, all I got is a small pop up message that jumps around the perimeter of the screen in a clockwise direction. The message is:"out of range". I left it running for quite a while and nothing changed...............just the pop up circling the screen........... | ||
| Froggy |
Out of range means the videocard is trying to display a resolution or frame rate your monitor doesn't support. | ||
| M1combat |
Yeah... The venerable "Click of Death"... I'd stop messing with it. Once you get a new computer try to plug it into the new PC (If it's SATA you can plug it in while the system is running) and grab data from it. You may also be able to do a full scan disk (both boxes checked) from another system. If so it may clear up the bad sectors and give you a usable drive. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Rats. Must be fussy video card with very proprietary drivers. Next would be to go with a variation of what M1 is suggesting... get a cheap external enclosure appropriate for your drive (EIDE or SATA), and put it in there, and try it on a working system. | ||
| Just_ziptab |
OK,swapped hard drives into this computer and it did the same stuff.....only when it failed to boot,it goes back to the menu to let me try to boot in another mode of my choice. Tried them all....none work. Swapped them back. Guess I'm shopping for a new hard drive.  | ||
| Froggy |
What are the details like size and brand of the drive? | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Could a consumer could send it in and get a warranty replacement? Not even a year old.  | ||
| Froggy |
Well the drive is too big for me to do my method of replacement Good news is, a quick check on Western Digitals site shows that you are under warranty to December 18th 2012, so send it in for a new one  | ||
| Just_ziptab |
Thanks Froggy/Buellers! One last question. Can a second drive be installed in the bracket with the main drive as a back up? It has a second wire harness plug (large one), parallel with it,but doesn't have the smaller plug in. Would I need another cord? It has 4 SATA sockets on the motherboard(1 thru 4). 1 goes to the drive,2 goes to the CD burner and 3&4 are empty.I has a huge power supply,so that wouldn't be a problem. Oh yeah,do you leave your PC on all the time? I shut mine down every morning.Fire it up when I get home from work. Good/bad? ........... Well,back to polishing on the S1....... (Message edited by just_ziptab on April 17, 2010) |
