Bob the Builder broke my PC! Can you fix it?

weeble

weeble

weeble

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Was watching Bob the Builder with my son, and noticed the HDD going mad (took ages to load Bob, HDD light continously on and very noisy). Switched PC on the following morning, and windows would not load at all!

Fortunately did a backup a couple of weeks ago, so decided a fresh install of windows might work, formatting the HDD. Nope, no hard drive detected after putting all 6 disks in (plus SATA drivers too), even though the BIOS detects it.

So checked all leads (replaced SATA lead), jumper settings, decided to put a brand new HDD in, and still the same scenerio :mad:

Have got an ASUS A8V Deluxe mobo (and SATA HDD's), so tried the different SATA connections, and different RAID cofigurations, using the Fastrak or VIA controllers (updating BIOS prior) - no joy. :(


Any ideas?

Apart from throwing Bob the Builder out the window, he can't fix it, he broke it - Thomas the Tank engine's far better!
 
Sounds like the hard drive died. You will probably need to get a new one. Slow-downs and high pitch noises are always a sign of a hard drive dying.
 
download the drive utils from the hdd manufacturers site and run a diag. Will soon tell you if it's borked or not - sounds like it though
 
The OP tried a different harddrive so the motherboard must be the problem. Sounds like you'll need a new one.

"Bob the builder.. can he fix it.. Bob the builder.. No he can't!"
 
Yeah, I kinda resigned to the fact the original HDD is gone (Maxtor), so bought a brand new one yesterday (Samsung) and whacked it in in the same configuration as the old one.

Formatted new HDD, made it Raid 0 and added to array, but keeps saying no hard drive attached when trying to install windows. BIOS picks it up though. Changed SATA leads, tried all different SATA configurations on mobo. Doing my head in!

Have new HDD's been sold as defunct?
 
sorry, missed the fact that you had tried a new hdd.

Have you tried the new drive as a single drive and not part of a raid array?
 
ArchAnGeL said:
Have you tried the new drive as a single drive and not part of a raid array?
Click to expand...

Will give that a go tonight, as I was about to do that last night after attempting to make a driver disk for the other onboard controller, but parental responsibilities took over.

Hopefully, Bob might have fixed it tomorrow ;)
 
If you are installing windows XP you will need the bootdisk that will tell windows XP installation you are using raid.

You must install the controllers before install windows xp and you do that as you enter the xp setup press F6. You must however have a disk with the drivers for your Sata controllers.

Hope this helps

AbZ
 
Cheers Abz - have been using the Fastrak SATA drivers (which worked on previous reinstalls on the same desktop) which are needed for the RAID setup, but will try the VIA SATA drivers tonight and setup the HDD as a stand alone drive (was going to create the VIA drivers last night, but got taken away).

Spades and shovels crossed ;)
 
Think Spud might have become involved!!

Wired up the HDD as a single drive using the Southbridge Via chipset, created the drivers for it...and...it worked! Loaded up windows, norton...did a couple of updates (Norton and Windows SP2) and then it failed to restart after an MS update for Windows Installer 3.1 - just hung loading windows.

Rebooted and now nothing. Nadda. No startup display on the monitor, even BIOS settings at the beginning. Monitor has power, but just doesn't seem to come on. Keyboard numlock lights don't come on. HDD light on baseunit lights up for a while (30 secs), no beeps though...

Whats going on now? Mobo? BIOS? GFX card? Thought I was home and dry when installing the updates :(
 
I had a similar problem almost 2 years ago. First my maxtor harddrive died so off it went for a replacement. The new one came back and I tried to install as before over raid 0 but windows wouldnt boot!! sounding familiar?! Anyway it turned out that the sata controller was kuput as well so unfortunately I had to get a new one and since then ive had no troubles at all. I dont know if the two were related of if i was just unlucky but your situation sounds very familiar.
 
Does sound quite similar.

Gonna flash the bios tonight, but how did you replace the SATA controllers? Or did you just go for a new mobo?
 
Mobo's toast :( Won't even boot from external drives, so couldn't flash the BIOS. Tried clearing the CMOS but that didn't achieve anything.

It's all failed the wrong side of 3yrs too :mad:

Since I've got an AGP 6800 GT and an AMD 3200 64 bit chip, thinking of just replacing most...

Wondering about opinions on this bundle: Intel Core 2 DUO LGA775 E6600 2.40GHz Retail / Gigabyte 965P DS3 / 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2 Dual Channel Kit

As most mobo's have PCI- E slots, might as well get a new GFX car, but which one for £150? Am drawn to ATI's oddly, but see Nvidia are more DX10 compliant, but I'm not fussed about being SLI ready.

Total budget's £500 (was gonna get a TV, but that'll have to wait)
 
For £150 a radeon x1950 pro is probably best. I would however very strongly suggest spending a little more and getting an invidia 8800 gts in some form.

Rest looks great to me.
 
weeble said:
Mobo's Wondering about opinions on this bundle: Intel Core 2 DUO LGA775 E6600 2.40GHz Retail / Gigabyte 965P DS3 / 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2 Dual Channel Kit

As most mobo's have PCI- E slots, might as well get a new GFX car, but which one for £150? Am drawn to ATI's oddly, but see Nvidia are more DX10 compliant, but I'm not fussed about being SLI ready.
Click to expand...

If your overclocking i would suggest this CPU:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 "LGA775 Conroe" 2.13GHz (1066FSB) - Retail

Also get a decent cooler:

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro CPU Cooler (Socket 775)

Change the motherboard to this, great board:

Gigabyte GA_965P_DS3P (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

As for the memory get this:

Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2x1GB) DDR2 PC2-5300C3 667MHz Dual Channel Kit

As for the graphics card if you want to spend £150 i would suggest getting this one, its worth the extra:

BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC 320MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI (PCI-Express) - Retail

Total : £508.66 slightly over budget, if you want to stay in budget, change the 8800 to this GPU:

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3

Total : £426.41
 
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