Hard drive disappearing from bios, help plz

fRostiE

fRostiE

fRostiE

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
6,212
Location
UK
Hi,

I had some very strange goings on last night and was wondering if someone could diagnose it?

I was playing GRID (for the first time) and had been for about 30 minutes, then i got a BSOD (beginning physical memory dump - please restart)

so i did, then my hard drive disappeared from the bios, and it asked for the system disk... so i turned it off for 1 min then on again and the hard drive was back.

got into windows but it just froze solid, hard drive light permanently on, so i reset and the Hard drive disappeared again.

The hard drive is now back after the PC ran CHK DSK of its own accord on the way into windows (twice) and all seems fine...

what’s the likely culprit? the 3 month old hard drive of the 12 month old ram? or the motherboard? or the wind?

Any opinions welcomed, ta
 
Check the cables, sometimes they work loose with a few heat cycles, check also for stress points where the internal cores of the cable may have broken.

If cables check out, proceed as follows........
Shut machine down.
Leave it down.
Get another HD.
Clone the old one to the new one, or if it cannot stay visible long enough, copy files in managable amounts.
Keep drive as cool as possible throughout.

Then continue your investigations. Better dafe than in tears.
 
thanks,

i've backed up files onto an external drive but i dont have a spare 750gb around :( - will replace the cable entirely as i have a spare sata cable... if it does it again i'll be forced to order a new drive....

so from that i take it that the RAM is fine?
 
If the Hard Drive is vanishing from BIOS-land, it's not the RAM.

Unless the RAM is causing a different issue with stability in Windows. :p
 
i suppose that makes sense actually :p i was unsure as to why it was doing a 'physical memory dump' though... not that i know exactly what that means but i assumed it was RAM related!!
 
Sick RAM would not cause such a specific, recurring fault. It would tend to be far far more random.

If it's not a cable, it's 90% certainly a control board issue, and a fiver says it's a maxtor drive.
 
fRostiE said:
i suppose that makes sense actually :p i was unsure as to why it was doing a 'physical memory dump' though... not that i know exactly what that means but i assumed it was RAM related!!
Click to expand...

Basically means.......
"I've No Swearing! meself, here's the poo for you to pick through".
Also called a core dump, it's basically either the system areas, or the entire used RAM that gets No Swearing! out into a file (depending on the situation), the idea is that someone can pick through it and find out what broke, I rather suspect that given the complexity of modern systems and windows occassional bouts of madness, that there's not a person alive who could deduce a great deal from the core dump.


That's a point.....where do they go and do they mount up and use up lots of space in windows?
 
thegoonden said:
Sick RAM would not cause such a specific, recurring fault. It would tend to be far far more random.

If it's not a cable, it's 90% certainly a control board issue, and a fiver says it's a maxtor drive.
Click to expand...

control board being the motherboard? or the PCB on the hard drive

(its either a samsung or seagate, cant remember which)

both my maxtor drives are fine :p

----

was also a bit miffed when it was the first time i've played GRID (very graphics intensive from the looks of it) - wondered if it ran out of ram then conked out? 2gb DDR2 should be fine tho surely?
 
First, edit your post and remove that Murray Walker-esque curse you just put on your two Maxtors ;)
If you don't they will be pools of liquid metal inside the week.


I meant the PCB on the back of the drive. Maxtors (though, not sure about such new/high capacity ones) are legend for blowing their boards, I've cooked one and my bro has a dedicated graveyard of half a dozen!! Most came from the house server though, her hostname is "guzunda" cos she guzunda the table, but I think it should be changed to autoclave or maybe kiln.

Hopefully it's just a cable. SATA cables are a bit fragile tbh.
(tis SATA isn't it? if not, it's more likely to be power than data cable).

BTW, this is Race Driver Grid?
Any good (for the few secs you played)?
Last one of the series I played I found to be just horrible. Clunky interface, menu madness, and cartoon physics.
I'm more of an rfactor/gpl/lfs chap myself.
 
Yeh its a SATA drive... i'll bung a new one in when im home.

yeh great graphics, a bit arcadey and nothing like LFS or GPL tho which i consider to be proper simulators, its a NFS sorta game, takes a while to load inbetween races and things but seems to be a nice little game to kill time on!
 
I better avoid it....played gt4 on ps2 recently.....jumped into a 1988 Marlboro McRon for a spin around monaco in rfactor before the real GP.....oh dear oh dear. No wall left unblattered, no escape road unexplored.
Ruined me that flippin arcade game (I do love it though, bought a PS2 only a month ago, purely for that).


Post back if the cable fixes/does not fix the problem, always useful for the 0.001% of users who can see the search button ;)
 
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