NO HDD?

[breezer]

switched my pc onthis evening, wont boot.

re start go into BIOS no hdd (good reason not to boot then)

un plug HDD plug back in reboot wont start HDD error

re start go into BIOS HDD is now there but as i have 2 it wants to boot from the other one (typical)

change boot order, sorted

Question

any suggestions / reasons why

switched pc off this am via the start button on screen (why you press start to stop i have no idea)

so pc has sat here all day down powered as normal then on switch on looses HDD, house empty all day to, so no one touched it

 

[doormouse1]

Could be motherboard is on the way out.
I've seen a few older PCs this year where one (or both) of the IDE controllers have failed. Sometimes they've trashed the HDs when they've gone, so make sure you've backed up anything important.

 

[breezer]

thanks, the mobo is only about 3 years old, and all the good stuff is backed up

 

[wanleg]

Could also be the HDD on it's way out....good job you have a backup.

 

[dave.m]

thanks, the mobo is only about 3 years old, and all the good stuff is backed up

It is backed up to somewhere other than your master hard drive?
It's not backed up to a second partition on the master HD?

I knew it would be backed up safe but I have come across people with duff HDs and saying their backup is on Partition D. . . Sorry!
dave

Just a thought but after three years it could be the CMOS battery that is causing the BIOS to fail it's boot up routine.
Worth a couple of quid to get a new one and pop it in.
dave

 

[breezer]

battery, thats a good point, but surely the default boot up would be ide 0 then ide 1 my C drive is on 0

I think i am going to format drive c ths week end, i know the drive wont change the boot sequence but i have been having trouble with OE so perhaps i have some nasty bug, although avg and ad aware say all is well

if it helps system restore does not know what Februray is, it used to

 

[Doc Lenny]

Any errors in the event viewer?

 

[breezer]

sorry whats that?

 

[dave.m]

Breezer,
Event viewer . . . what it is and how to use it by M$
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308427
dave

 

[breezer]

oh dear, i wish i had not have done that, its full of errors.

but nothing i can do about it. the MS data base has no idea what so ever, it says

"We're sorry
There is no additional information about this issue in the Error and Event Log Messages or Knowledge Base databases at this time. "

back to plan f then (format it this week end)

 

[Doc Lenny]

If your HDD is failing due to physical errors then it is a waste of time formatting, you will have the same problems.

Before you format, look up your HDD manufacturer and download a diagnostic utility to check for errors.

The reason I asked to look at the event viewer is that there maybe some indication of a failing HDD, warning to backup your data.

 

[breezer]

thanks, the errors i looked at all said something along the lines of failiure to load xxxxxxx website, at least thats what it looked like

 

[Igorian]

Yer missus has found your porn sites and they're being blocked.