Apparent hard drive failure

[Analoguesat]

I know a lot of people who have Dell computers and major breaksdowns are pretty rare on them. Ive got one - and apart from a vibration due to due to dust buildup on one of the fans its pretty good.

[BGonaSTICK]

I don't think you can condemn Dell based on one dodgy motherboard. 8)

I have a PIII 667 Dell that's never once missed a beat.

I don't think your addition of a PCI IDE board would have necessarily worked anyway. It didn't when I tried that trick on the Compaq mobo I owned that had an intermittant IDE controller problem.

The BIOS wasn't happy booting from the card - it only wanted to use the on-board controller :

[wobblywill]

does sound increasingly like a bios failure, in a previous existence i was a hardware techie ( but always have lots to learn) . what you describe as a cascade failure is classic bios. very much doubt if the data transfer was the cause of the failure, more likely sods law :spite:

in my day time, tiny and hp were the nightmare pc's, dell were ok once you formatted and reloaded with your own os, ok you lost some of the keyboard functions but i prefer my own hotkeys anyway 8)

good luck with the new mb but be aware that it will probably trash the dell os, whichever version you have (98,2k,xp)
back up your data by inserting the hd into another pc as a slave, remember to search for the outlook express dbx files if it is your mail client, and back them up as well

wibble

[nanochickin]

Thanks for that Wobblywill, i was wondering how i was going to get back the emails i had on my HDD

[imported_Jimbo]

Hi,

Now please dont shoot me down in flames ( as if ) but go careful - there were rumours that some Dells have non standard PSU's in them... wouldn't want you to fry that shiny new MB.

It was just something I read somehwere - dont know how true.

Jimbo

edit added url

http://www.quepublishing.com/article...?p=339053&rl=1

(is that allowed?)

[nanochickin]

Its alive

just thought i would try it again and to my suprise it fired up. Armed with the Dell Bios upgrade disk i just made on my Compaq Deskpro i stuck in and let the pc read from the disk and then upgraded the bios as to be honest i couldn't break it anymore

What do you know i'm just putting a fresh install of XP Pro on to my new Maxtor 80Gb drive

Don't know if its going to run or if it does what i'm going to do with the new MB if it does

Should let you all know whats happening in about 35 mins

[BGonaSTICK]

Yeah, that link's fine

I can quite believe the Dell power supply thing. I had to swap out the Compaq PII 400 PSU as it wasn't man enough to power my Athlon. New ATX PSU arrives - completely different location of the external power socket. I had to cut a new aperture in the rear of the case by chain-drilling it out and finishing it with needle files. It was a beautiful job when finished (smug mode ON)

I also had to cut a new slot for the AGP graphics card to show itself too - because the motherboard slot was physically higher on the standard ATX board than the non-standard Compaq mobo.

It was one of those things where once you start, you just have to carry on. It became STICK vs Compaq :roflmao:

I also had to modify and fit a new power switch, again because the Compaq item was non-standard, and add an internal speaker (didn't have one originally). A few other minor mods were required too.

Sorry, I don't mean to hijack the thread, but it's a warning to Nano and others that the big manufacturers like to make it hard to swap motherboards, PSUs and whatever. I was determined to fix it, because I really liked the case/chassis and quick-release drive bay arrangement.

LOL, it's taken me so long to type this that I see Nano's managed to rebuild his computer, have a shower, walk the dogs, cook some pancakes and decorate the spare room.

:clap: :spite:

[wobblywill]

jimbo

are you thinking about the laptop battery fiasco, sony also supplied dell? however you are right, dodgy psu's are often a source of multiple organ failure in pc's, as with everything else the techspec keeps changin and rumours keep on being rumours :?

[nanochickin]

Its Alive

Time to close the thread me thinks.


Thanks Will i would never have thought of reInstalling the bios, works like a dream now

The main HDD is fried and i've lost about 40gb of stuff, but its not the end of the world. I'm just wondering now what to do with that new mainboard and HDD controller



Nano

[BGonaSTICK]

I'd hang onto it. If your BIOS has gone down once, it could do it again. Changing out the motherboard battery might be a good move - they don't cost very much. And get some backups done of what you have left!

Glad you're out of the doo-doo anyhow