Need help with poss hardware problem please

jubei

jubei

jubei

Soldato
Joined
3 Apr 2003
Posts
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Hi guys,

Seem to be having a lot of problems at the moment with my computer. Ages ago i bought my rig with 2 sata 150gig samsung HDD and MSI neo plat motherboard etc.

Was running the HDD in Raid and then for some reason one of my drives kept disappearing which i put down to raid so i formatted and kept them seperate. This was fine for a while but then i was still getting errors where files n folders would just disappear.

When trying to unplug a HDD to test them individually i seemed to have snapped off the sata connector in the hd :|

Carried on using with just one HDD and then apparently my GFX died so upgraded GFX card. Then my computer just froze one day and would not reboot, kept flicking to a blue screen after posting and rebooting. Opened her up and tried to unplug hdd and seemingly that connector broke too but then still slotted together with pins and it worked again.

Now it has frozen again with an error message:

windows cannot boot because a file is missing or corrupt windows root/system32/hal.dll.

Google tells me that this is generally a duff HDD, i am loathe to buy new HDD incase its something to do with the mobo or ram etc, sick of throwing money down the pan. Also i see drives are all Sata 2 etc now and dont think my MSI k8n neo platinum would be able to run them?

Also any input on the connectors? i am not heavy handed it just seems that they get stuck somehow, really annoying could the cables be the actual problem?

Thanks for the help.
 
I don't think there is an easy answer to this. Windows can become corrupt for various reasons mine got corrupted when I tried to overclock and the message was also about a missing file.

You could try re-installing Windows, there is even an option to repair an Installation but it's not the first repair option that is offered.
I would check the web for how to do this as when I tried it I erased all the data on mine.
 
Re-reading your post it does seem like the HDD is suspect and the one you broke may have been the good one but you carn't be certian.
 
Sel said:
Re-reading your post it does seem like the HDD is suspect and the one you broke may have been the good one but you carn't be certian.
Click to expand...

Appreciate the reply mate, i forgot to mention in that essay that i only formatted a week ago after the computer wouldnt boot up. This worked and then it froze again a couple of days later which resulted in first boot problem as stated above, replugging the drive sorted this out and now its got the missing file.

The thought that the one i broke the cable off in was the working one did cross my mind :)

God i am starting to hate these sata drives, never ever had a problem with my old rigs.

Now i am looking at ocuk and its all sata2 etc, could anyone tell me what i would need to order in way of cables jumpers adapters and drive to get a working replacement fairly sharpish?

Also if anyone thinks it could be mobo/memory/cable related instead of HDD please give me a heads up and save me wasting some more money!!!

Thanks again
 
Just noticed something else when reading around, though i dont imagine it should be a problem as i have formatted many times since i used raid but just incase.

Should i be pressing F6 to install third party driver when i install windows and putting in the floppy that came with my mobo to install raid drivers? Or is that only for raid and not just SATA use?

Cheers
 
This may help.

Yep SATA300 is backwards compatable with SATA150. It'll just reduce the speed to SATA150

Often find (on latest SATAII drives) that there is a jumper to enhance compatibility with SATA.....I recently used a 160GB Maxtor SATAII drive, and discovered a tiny jumper on the back to set to SATA 150 mode.....I understand this can help, where an older 'board is fussy over a SATAII HDD...

Got if of another forum sorry it wouldn't let me post a link.
 
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Reinstall windows first. Corrupt windows files can be due to a hundred different things, and usually a fresh installation works.

That said, does sound like your HDD is on the blink.
 
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