Hard Drive Boot Problems
 

Alright, so I was trying to install XP on my computer to see if I could get something to work. Normally I run Vista.

Something went wrong with the XP install, and my computer decides not to boot up again. In fact, the hard drive is freezing the BIOS at the logo screen. (Gateway logo, Intel inside, Boot Menu button, Setup button). I try to press the boot menu button, the motherboard buzzes. I try the setup button, nothing works.

I proceed to try to use other HDs in the computer, they work, but none of them have operating systems so they're useless. I try to put my other hard drive in a different computer and install XP on the partition again to no avail. I then try to install Vista using a disc I know works, and it does install. It boots and everything. From there, I try to put it back into my computer, but I get the same problem. Its not getting past the logo screen. I tried resetting my BIOS to the default values but thats not quite working either.

In conclusion, it seems the hard drive isn't dead, but it won't boot on my computer for some reason and I don't know why. It's very eerie and frustrating, so please help.

Does the hard drive show up at all in the BIOS, or will it not even get that far? If you can get into the BIOS, see if it recognizes the drive correctly, and also see if you can run any SMART tests there as well.

I also recommend hooking up this oddball drive to another computer, give it a thorough format, double-check your jumpers, and try it again. If that doesn't work, then it's likely that something in the drive is fucked up beyond simple repair and it's destined for a RMA or the junkheap.

I can't get that far in the BIOS. I hook it up as a slave drive on my mom's computer and it works fine. I would just format if it weren't for important data that I have on the computer. I would back it up but I have no where to put all of it: It's about 30GB of stuff. I might just buy a new hard drive but I don't know. I want to exhaust all other options before I pull out my wallet.

If you can hook it up as a slave drive, then backup all your data from there. Then feel free to reformat. 30GB isn't too much if you have a DVD burner. It'd take just 7 DVDs.

burned my shit and got out of there. Formatted. Nothing. It still won't boot. I have no clue what to do now.

It works fine on your moms computer because it's not being used a boot drive.

I don't know what your problem is, could be physical(the drive itself). Doesn't make any sense for a program to rewrite HDD boot settings, especially if it's the primary drive. Atleast you have your data. My secondary went out and took 74 gigs with it. -___________________-.

But is your HDD a Western Digital?

Yeah, a WD1600. I'm thinking about just buying a 500GB drive and an external enclosure and being done with this. I can't leech other peoples computers for much longer and its really pissing me off having limited capability of what I can do.

That is your problem.....

Western Digital hardrives are not durable. Everybody has problems with them. Infact that is one that died on me. It wouldn't boot and made clicking sounds. God I'm glad that wasn;t my primary or I'd be fucked cause this the only computer I have. Took it to best buy and they said the arm inside broke off and it'd cost 500$ to fix it.

Well yeah, I hear they aren't the best but its not like its been through any physical wear and tear since I can do everything with it except boot as master. I was thinking maybe installing XP fucked with the boot record, but I figured deleting the XP from that partition and reinstalling Vista would fix the problem. It didn't and now I'm fucked.

If the drive is working in another computer it may be worth using some disk checking tools:

This page has a list of disk checking tools
Western Digital Lifeguard tool
Maxtor disk check tool (I've used this one before and it seems to work on other manufacturers drives too)
Seatools, used to be an online check, looks like they've got rid of that for a downloadable windows based version. Seagate acquired Maxtor so some of the functionality of the Maxtor disk check tool could be carried across

It may be worth running the checks first, see if any errors come up then run a low level format to completely scrub the drive.

Honestly, I'd check the motherboard as well as the hard disk cable to see if there are any errors; it looks like your hard drive is working fine, since it was detected on a slave to another computer and was able to be backed up successfully.

Understandably, I only prefer Seagate drives (over Western Digital), however WD drives still don't die all the time for at least approximately 1-3 years.

My final word of caution: do a very strong (i think it was a /F and /R options) dskchk on your hard drive to assure that no sectors are missing.