Hard Drive failure

[tman]

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?

[Neutrino]

Originally Posted by tman2093

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...530/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

[tman]

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

[Neutrino]

Originally Posted by tman2093

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

[tman]

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

any tricks to try to access the drive though?

[Oz]

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

[Neutrino]

Originally Posted by tman2093

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

[tman]

awesome, I have a really cool paperweight now!

[zagrot]

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.

[tman]

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?

[Neutrino]

Originally Posted by tman2093

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.

[tman]

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.

[zagrot]

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/art...&seqNum=4&rl=1

hope it helps

[tman]

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.

[zagrot]

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.