Hard Drive failure

Power supply on my xp machine died. Computer wont start unless i hit the power button and wait about 5 mins until the electricity begins to pulse, then i can hit power again and it'll start up. New power supply from newegg.com on the way, problem solved.

Not completely. When the PS died, I think it surged and killed my hard drive. When the computer would start, it would say OS not found or something like that. Moving the HDD to another computer, it wont start. DOS says primary drive 0 not found. I couldn't connect the drive as a slave unit to my windows 2000 compy to retrieve my data. I could feel the drive vibrating, but it didnt show up in my computer or in the disk manager. I need to get my info off of this drive. If i put in the xp cd, and i choose repair in the dos menu, will it only repair the OS leaving my files intact? I plan to abandon it as my boot drive anyway(its only 40GB) and use it as a backup only drive.

I had the jumper set correctly, because there is an OS on it, will it not allow itself to be used as a slave? Will repair fix only the OS and leave my saved stuff intact?

Power supply on my xp machine died. Computer wont start unless i hit the power button and wait about 5 mins until the electricity begins to pulse, then i can hit power again and it'll start up. New power supply from newegg.com on the way, problem solved.

Not completely. When the PS died, I think it surged and killed my hard drive. When the computer would start, it would say OS not found or something like that. Moving the HDD to another computer, it wont start. DOS says primary drive 0 not found. I couldn't connect the drive as a slave unit to my windows 2000 compy to retrieve my data. I could feel the drive vibrating, but it didnt show up in my computer or in the disk manager. I need to get my info off of this drive. If i put in the xp cd, and i choose repair in the dos menu, will it only repair the OS leaving my files intact? I plan to abandon it as my boot drive anyway(its only 40GB) and use it as a backup only drive.

I had the jumper set correctly, because there is an OS on it, will it not allow itself to be used as a slave? Will repair fix only the OS and leave my saved stuff intact?


well if another computer still cannot acess your drive the XP CD cannot do anything. If a power surge is to blame then its very likelly the HD's electronics are gone. The good news is that in this case the data is still safelly on the drive.

Read this article to familiarise yourself with data recovery:
http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20050530/index.html


BTW this cannot be stressed enough, never ever cheap out on the PSU. Most no name brands are rubbish.

Make sure you get something like an Antec, Enermax or even a PC Power & cooling if you what the absolute best.

here is a good guide to some good PSUs:
http://www.dfi-street.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10854

Well the PSU came with the dell, and I never checked to see how much power it made. turns out it was 250W. I ordered a 400W Antec sl400 from newegg on saturday, and should be here before too long.

anyway, can I get my data off the bum drive if the electronics are gone, without paying huge amounts to data recovery people?

I backed up my mp3's, and I only lost a few photoshop files, and a few old school projects, so I'm not worried about those.

I had about 20GB of, ahem , movies though. I'd hate to *aquire* them again. The blues brothers movie was a bugger to find

Well the PSU came with the dell, and I never checked to see how much power it made. turns out it was 250W. I ordered a 400W Antec sl400 from newegg on saturday, and should be here before too long.

anyway, can I get my data off the bum drive if the electronics are gone, without paying huge amounts to data recovery people?

I backed up my mp3's, and I only lost a few photoshop files, and a few old school projects, so I'm not worried about those.

I had about 20GB of, ahem , movies though. I'd hate to *aquire* them again. The blues brothers movie was a bugger to find


well if the electronics are gone the only way is to conpletelly replace the whole thing. Unfortunatelly most HD manufacturers don't sell those to anyone (in most cases).


Best bet would be to get a mothly pass at blockbuster and just PM me and i'll show you some excellent sofware to "reaquire" them for your PC;)

The blockbuster thing would be my best option. Better quality anyway.

any tricks to try to access the drive though?

It's dead - get a quote on data recovery. Sorry dude, been through that 'Operating System' missing shit before myself.

The blockbuster thing would be my best option. Better quality anyway.

any tricks to try to access the drive though?


i'm sorry but if the electronics are fryied the only thing that would work is replacing them

awesome, I have a really cool paperweight now!

you said that you have a dell? before you install the new power supply that you ordered make sure that the ps's pinout is compatible with your motherboard. excerpt from my a+ book:

"Dell ATX power supplies made after 1998 might not use the standard P1 pinouts for ATX, although the power connectors look the same."

it goes on to say not to use dell p/s with a non dell motherboard or vice versa. i've herd that there are adapters for using a non dell p/s on a dell mobo, but i don't know where to get them.

when you put your "fried" harddrive in you win2k computer did you update the bios to reflect the hardware change? if you did not then the computer will never see the hd anyway.

zagrot, good point with the bios thing.

as for the power connector, if you're talking about the 10X2 pin connector, I was wondering about the same thing. on the old PS, one pin is missing, and its there on the replacement. Or are you talking about the 2X2 pin connector?

I've read on the dell community forums, and the tech support(Indian fellow) told me to just buy a standard ATX PS, which is what I did. Bought an Antec SL400 PS from Newegg.

Edit- Just saw that you said P1, its the different one. Where can i get an adapter so I don't cook the mobo, or do I have a second paperweight in the form of a new PS?

Edit2- If I plug in the new PS, will it cook the mobo, causing more problems, or just not start?

zagrot, good point with the bios thing.

as for the power connector, if you're talking about the 10X2 pin connector, I was wondering about the same thing. on the old PS, one pin is missing, and its there on the replacement. Or are you talking about the 2X2 pin connector?

I've read on the dell community forums, and the tech support(Indian fellow) told me to just buy a standard ATX PS, which is what I did. Bought an Antec SL400 PS from Newegg.

Edit- Just saw that you said P1, its the different one. Where can i get an adapter so I don't cook the mobo, or do I have a second paperweight in the form of a new PS?

Edit2- If I plug in the new PS, will it cook the mobo, causing more problems, or just not start?


if the dell mobo is not atx standard the your new PSU can either burn it and maybe even burn itselfor nothing might happen. It really depends on how the wiring is done.


Honestly if would be uber lame for dell not to use such a basic standard. Anyway is just another reason brand name computers suck monkey balls (technical term very complicated;)).


IMO call it a loss and buil yourself a nice custom rig. Of if you cannot do that yourself go to a reliable small store around you and have them built it for you.

I wanted to build my own 2 years ago, but I was 15 then and mom was able to get a pretty good deal since she has a contract with dell from her work.

This is proving to be very stressful. I'm tempted to just keep using the windows 2000 machine.

the P1 connector is the 10x2 (for a total of 20 wires). a quick internet search yielded this information on the dell to atx adapter. there are pictures to illustrate the point and you cna purchase here too:

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/dellconverter.html

and the dell atx pinout

http://pinouts.ru/data/dell_atxpower_pinout.shtml

and the standard atx pinout

http://pinouts.ru/data/atxpower_pinout.shtml

and some general info regarding power supplies with an informative rant at the end the may apply to your dell computer.

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=31105&seqNum=4&rl=1

hope it helps

My connector matches the standard ATX pinout except wire #18 (-5 VDC is missing) It is nothing like the Dell pinout.

What should I do.

the connector on the old power supply matches the standard atx pinout? i guess go ahead and install the new one. maybe as a precaution you may want to remove the #18 wire from the plastic connector and insulate it with shrink wrap, but i don't think this will be nessecary. sorry for all of the confusion, but when i saw that you were replacing a dell power supply i thought i'd raise a warning flag to make sure you did not unwittingly run into more bad luck.

what exactly does the -5 VDC do? And why wouldn't I need it?

that depends on the motherboard's requirements. but if there was no lead at the 18 position with the origional power supply i guess it does not do anything.

The motherboard has a #18 pin but the power supply has no corresponding wire. The missing wire matches the Dell pinout, do you think Dell purposly used the ATX colored wires, but used them for it's own purposes, just to confuse people like me and sell me a new PS and motherboard?

I can go to tigerdirect.com, spend 200 dollars, get a new case, a new motherboard, and an additional 1GB stick of memory, us my 512 I have, reuse my 2.66GHz processor, reuse optical drives, floppy and hard drives, use the new PS on order, and have a new computer pretty much.

does your motherboard look like the ones in this picture?

http://www.endpcnoise.com/cgi-bin/e/dellconverter.html

if not you should be safe with a standard ATX power supply, but if it does you will need an adapter. i don't think dell is so ruthless that they would use the wire color scheme to confuse people so if the old p/s's wire color matches up with the wire colors for the standard ATX p/s pinout you'll be reasonably safe. it seems that dell only used the non-standard p/s for the years between '98 and 2000. which brings me around to the #18 wire thing, i said that as a precaution you may wish to remove the wire from the plastic connector on the new power supply. i understand that the mobo has a pin at position 18, i was curious as to whether or not the mobo had circuit traces (the "little metal roads") leading from the #18 position to parts unknown on the motherboard. if it does you may wish to remove wire #18 (DO NOT cut it off!), but if there are no traces then you definately woun't have to remove wire 18. the only thing that we can conclude from comparing the new and old p/s is that there is no wire at #18 on the origional, that is if the wire colors are in the same positions on both. what would you do if this were a difficult-to-find auto part, but there was a part that was nearly the same, cheaper, and easier to find, except it had an extra wire? you would probably remove he extra wire, insulate it, and tuck it safely away. no you don't need to build another computer (unless the mobo is already toasted). so re-read theis post, compare the OLD p/s to the pinouts that you have (wire color and all), inspect the mobo if you feel up to looking at the back side of it, and if everything looks right give it a shot.

Thanks zagrot, you're absolutely right about what I'd do if it were a car. I can't tell if there is a lead for that pin, I can't see a lead for any pin on that bank of terminals.

Only the P1 connector and one 2X2 connector plugs into the motherboard. The P1 plugs in near the HD headers and CD headers. The 2X2 (P2) plugs in between the processor and the ports that are visible from outside the case. That extra plug near the P1 is not on the PS's wiring harness.

I think I'll just plug in the ATX one and hope for the best. People on the Dell commmunity forums did that and it's been okay for them. I'll keep you guys updated.

Thanks zagrot, you're absolutely right about what I'd do if it were a car. I can't tell if there is a lead for that pin, I can't see a lead for any pin on that bank of terminals.

Only the P1 connector and one 2X2 connector plugs into the motherboard. The P1 plugs in near the HD headers and CD headers. The 2X2 (P2) plugs in between the processor and the ports that are visible from outside the case. That extra plug near the P1 is not on the PS's wiring harness.

I think I'll just plug in the ATX one and hope for the best. People on the Dell commmunity forums did that and it's been okay for them. I'll keep you guys updated.



Ok i'm a bit confused, what are the HD and CD headers? or are you refering to the IDE ports on the mobo?

your power suply is a 1st gen ATX correct? Then it should have a 20 pin and an aditional 4 pin. For stabilitys sake plug the 4 pin too since it provides a dedicated power source to the CPU.

BTW have you tested the mobo or any other components beside the HD to see if they are fried? Also remember that its not only the PSU that could have caused the problems, the mobo might be at fault due to some bad power regulators (albeit less likelly)

Well, the computer would run after I put in my spare hard drive, behaving like I said in my first post. I ran it long enough to install winXP

And I plugged in the 4pin also, I didn't mention it because I thought it was understood that I'd plug it in too. Anyway, the new PS is in the unit, and I'll power down the Win2k machine after I post this.

Wish me luck folks!

Good news, talking to you live from the windows XP machine with the new power supply. Thanks for all your help guys!