Hard drive failure/motherboard failure?

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Someone maybe able to help me out here.

Recently I have been having a few issues with my PC, I originally noticed it at xmas when my g/f was playing the sims the hard drive would occasionally click. So about a month ago it started clicking when accessing the last segment of the hard drive(had it partitioned into 3) So i bought a new hard drive. New hard drive is the same capacity(also added a 250gb HD as my storage instead of partitioned single drive) and it took me a while to set the machine up, got it running nice and sweet then about a week ago I had some problems when I clicked on a `dodgy link` in an msn window, it was for one of these pay to watch a webcam sites - but hey im a man of the world im as curious as everyone else lol

so anyway new window opens, hard drive light comes on as it was loading IE and then the machine hangs, with nothing on the PC responding before anything to much could happen i pulled the plug on the PC.

when I came to reboot it the first time round the PC could find no drives on the black screen at boot up, no CD/DVD drives or hard drives
so i rebooted a few times and eventually back in play I was, I even took the motherboard battery out incase it was a virus that may hide in the clock memory(I have heard of them)

so then it was running ok, although it has been playing up over the past few days, few times where it wouldnt boot
then last night we noticed that the hard drive light was on the whole time, so shut it down swapped the IDE cables for the HD from IDE plug 0 to plug 1 and put the DVD that was in plug 1 to plug 0, this solved the hard drive light issue, however I have noticed that even with the PC off(but power plugged in meaning the main board is live) that both my network connecter lights are perminantly on, this doesnt seem to cause a problem for surfing the internet though.

Then tonite the end has come (im now on my works laptop) My PC was left running on the internet, I had been using ebay msn live mail, msn messenger and that just surfing the internet, left it all on and went to watch TV, when I came back the PC it was showing the Black boot screen saying unable to boot please replace disk, so i pulled the battery out the motherboard again and restarted the machine, the machine then started to boot got to the windows XP load screen then went black then I could hear the hard drive clicking.

So with all this in mind could someone who knows more than I give me a clue to whats wrong?

is my 2 year old motherboard buggered?
is my 3 week old 80gb Maxtor hard drive buggered?
are the both buggered?

anything else?

help much appreciated

[the simpsons]

Originally Posted by Bugsy_malone 666

Someone maybe able to help me out here.

Recently I have been having a few issues with my PC, I originally noticed it at xmas when my g/f was playing the sims the hard drive would occasionally click. So about a month ago it started clicking when accessing the last segment of the hard drive(had it partitioned into 3) So i bought a new hard drive. New hard drive is the same capacity(also added a 250gb HD as my storage instead of partitioned single drive) and it took me a while to set the machine up, got it running nice and sweet then about a week ago I had some problems when I clicked on a `dodgy link` in an msn window, it was for one of these pay to watch a webcam sites - but hey im a man of the world im as curious as everyone else lol

so anyway new window opens, hard drive light comes on as it was loading IE and then the machine hangs, with nothing on the PC responding before anything to much could happen i pulled the plug on the PC.

when I came to reboot it the first time round the PC could find no drives on the black screen at boot up, no CD/DVD drives or hard drives
so i rebooted a few times and eventually back in play I was, I even took the motherboard battery out incase it was a virus that may hide in the clock memory(I have heard of them)

so then it was running ok, although it has been playing up over the past few days, few times where it wouldnt boot
then last night we noticed that the hard drive light was on the whole time, so shut it down swapped the IDE cables for the HD from IDE plug 0 to plug 1 and put the DVD that was in plug 1 to plug 0, this solved the hard drive light issue, however I have noticed that even with the PC off(but power plugged in meaning the main board is live) that both my network connecter lights are perminantly on, this doesnt seem to cause a problem for surfing the internet though.

Then tonite the end has come (im now on my works laptop) My PC was left running on the internet, I had been using ebay msn live mail, msn messenger and that just surfing the internet, left it all on and went to watch TV, when I came back the PC it was showing the Black boot screen saying unable to boot please replace disk, so i pulled the battery out the motherboard again and restarted the machine, the machine then started to boot got to the windows XP load screen then went black then I could hear the hard drive clicking.

So with all this in mind could someone who knows more than I give me a clue to whats wrong?

is my 2 year old motherboard buggered?
is my 3 week old 80gb Maxtor hard drive buggered?
are the both buggered?

anything else?

help much appreciated

hello i have read your thread and i can see that you say you have a couple of problems as you say the hard drive in your PC has been having trouble may i just ask 1 question though what type of PC do you have yano make etc and have you check to see whether it could be any of the other shall i say coponents in the PC. here are a few things that could be the problem:
1.i cant see it being the Hard drive but it could well be if you have not put it in properly and its catching on some of the other things in the PC.
2. it could also be the motherboard which you say you have had for 2 years was it
3. but it could be he fan has got too hot that it might of affected the hard drive.
4.since you only put in the new hard drive its probably that have you installed the drivers for this new hard drive coz if you havent you may need to do so.
5. and also the hard drive that you have installed and put in probably hasn't read properly where as it causing problems to your PC where it is having to reboot.
i hope this makes sense as i am trying to explain what i mean but cant get it into words
if you have any trouble understanding this ill do my best to try to explain
i will keep helping until your problem is solved.
Many thanks

The simpsons

[nathan123]

Originally Posted by the simpsons

hello i have read your thread and i can see that you say you have a couple of problems as you say the hard drive in your PC has been having trouble may i just ask 1 question though what type of PC do you have yano make etc and have you check to see whether it could be any of the other shall i say coponents in the PC. here are a few things that could be the problem:
1.i cant see it being the Hard drive but it could well be if you have not put it in properly and its catching on some of the other things in the PC.
2. it could also be the motherboard which you say you have had for 2 years was it
3. but it could be he fan has got too hot that it might of affected the hard drive.
4.since you only put in the new hard drive its probably that have you installed the drivers for this new hard drive coz if you havent you may need to do so.
5. and also the hard drive that you have installed and put in probably hasn't read properly where as it causing problems to your PC where it is having to reboot.
i hope this makes sense as i am trying to explain what i mean but cant get it into words
if you have any trouble understanding this ill do my best to try to xpalin
i will keep helping until your problem is solved.
Many thanks

The simpsons

I can't see a fan affecting the hard drive tbh. I would say try updating your BIOS, this may wipe out any virus that may be in there. If you're not 100% on how to do this, get it done by a professional

[Bugsy_malone 666]

OK the PC was built by me 2 odd years ago.

its a Novatech case with a 350 watt powersupply (just replaces the fan, but after my problems began and they are still happening)

Gigabyte 7VT600P-RZ motherboard

AMD Semperon XP2500+ CPU with aftermarket cooler

1gb of mem (2x256mb 1 x 512mb all PC3200)

ATI Radeon 9800 with aftermarket cooler

Sound Blaster Live sound card

2 x 80mm fans mounted infront of the hard drives at the bottom of the case spaces so air passes between drives

1 x 80mm rear mounted fan near CPU

maxtor 80gb main hard drive partitioned in 3, now replaced with 80gb single partition maxtor and 250gb hitatchi single partition.

thats the spec of my PC I cant see any inteference problems with the insides of the machine and like I say it was running nice upto the past week, CPU running about 50-55deg C, case temps 30-36c.

[Bugsy_malone 666]

Originally Posted by nathan123

get it done by a professional

but they cost money lol

thats a cracking idea though, normally means I need to use the software and get the PC to boot using the gigabyte live update, however it wont do owt at the minute

[the simpsons]

Originally Posted by nathan123

I can't see a fan affecting the hard drive tbh. I would say try updating your BIOS, this may wipe out any virus that may be in there. If you're not 100% on how to do this, get it done by a professional

oh yeah silly me good point what you have made there nathan there are lots of members on here who will know alot more than me to do with PC as nathan just said about the Bios, but what i dont understand is what has the BIOS got to do with hard drive problem and realy does this get rid of viruses now theres a very good point i forgot to mention i forgot to add i dont know what im on about anyway i had to get someone to find a certain virus software so i could put on my PC now thats what i call myself being lazy not finding stuff
oh well it was worth a try helping anyway

Many thanks

The simpsons

[Mickha]

Have you tried booting up into safe mode? Usually be pressing the F8 key on boot up you get the start up choices.
Can you enter the BIOS?
Personally I prefer to have 2 independent hard drives, each with an Operating System, then if one hard drive has problems I enter the BIOS and change the boot up to boot into the second, depending on the BIOS you change IDE 0 to IDE 1.
I now have 2 SATA hard drives so the configuration set up is slightly different.

[reddiesel]

Sounds to me that you need to run xp disc and restore, you can do this without losing any files, that maybe why hard drive is clattering about trying to find the start up files, as they have been corrupted.
Try what mickha and nathan are saying about reflashing bios, if you google mobo makers website you should be able to download latest update, either save it on a floppy if you have one or a disc from your laptop.

[Bandit1.3]

Hi this may not help but i replaced the hardrive 4 time's in my pc over a 2 month period each one clicked then would not boot turn power off somtimes it would statr up but after use a few hours hard light would come on pc froze as these drive were all tested and found faulty bad batch may be you take drive back for test . good luck .

[nathan123]

The only reason i suggested it might be a BIOS virus was that the motherboard was sometimes not picking up on the drives connected. Could also be a dodgey motherboard, but a good way to test without spending a lot of money on a new board is to flash the BIOS and see if that makes a difference. It could also be an addressing conflict in the BIOS which could be solved by a flash. Also Bandit, it's fine blaming a bad batch of hard drives if that really is the case, but it could also be your pc causing a problem to each drive