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Quick questions

Discussion in 'Techno-Magic' started by Tarrasque, Apr 9, 2008.

  1. Tarrasque

    Tarrasque Whoever said Paladins had to be charismatic? ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Just a quick couple of questions for those of you who know more about computers than I do (which is probably most of you!)

    My computer is about 3 years old now and approximately a month ago, it started failing to boot up giving a corrupted registry file error and asking me to use the windows cd to restore.

    Looking up the specific error message it gave (can't remember it now) implied that it may be due to a failed hard drive. As a result I purchased a replacement 500gB drive.

    My plan was to forget about restoring windows, install it fresh on the new HDD and attach the problematic drive as a secondary hard drive to copy across all my important files (music, games etc!).

    On reaching home, I found that the new HDD was not being recognised at all after the reboot stage of Windows setup (gave a HDD not recognised error) although the bios appeared to recognise it fine. Upon restoration of windows on the old drive, the new drive was recognised fine within windows but still didn't appear outside.

    Everything appeared to be working fine so I just used the old drive with the new one being used as a secondary drive, but making sure everything was heavilt backed up!

    A fortnight ago, windows for about 5 reboots suddenly started running extremely slowly - essentially crashing due to lack of speed requiring a hard reset.

    This week there has been several crashes necessitating a hard reset. On resetting, multiple times the computer has failed to recognise the old HDD and several times has also failed to recognise the new one either. To get it to work I had to fiddle with the SATA cables and leave the cover off.

    After that very long background :), my questions are quite simply
    1. Is it likely to be the old HDD, or some other piece of hardware such as the motherboard?
    2. If it is the old HDD, does anyone have any suggestions to getting it to work outside of windows? Samsung's suggestions seem to be lower the data rate by jumper settings (which I've tried) and then it WILL work!

    Many Thanks in advance,

    Alex
     
  2. Chas Gems: 14/31
    Latest gem: Chrysoberyl


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    OOPS My bad. did not read good enough. I was commenting on IDE drives, but you did say sata drives.


    To check for heat issues try downloading speedfan:
    http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

    or hardware monitor:
    http://www.cpuid.com/hwmonitor.php

    Both will monitor the temperature sensors on the MB and also the power supply voltages. Note: the temperature sensors are somewhat flaky since not all motherboards do the sensors the same way. For instance, on one of my PC's the CPU temp reads -128 Celsius. But for the ones that read correct, it may tell you something. And the voltage readings might show if you power supply is going bad. Does your MB have a small fan on the heat sink near the CPU? These fail a lot.
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2008
  3. Tarrasque

    Tarrasque Whoever said Paladins had to be charismatic? ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    It's not picking up any errors on the old HDD, and for that matter SMART is not giving errors either (not that that means anything!)

    What was making me wonder if it was something other than the HDD was the fact that
    a) with the side of my case removed, it appears to be running OK at the moment so part of me was wondering if it could perhaps be due to something overheating - in which case it's likely to be a fan issue and
    b) several times when the system has crashed, on restart it has failed to see any of the HDDs, old one or new one and it has only been upon unplugging and replugging power/interface cables that has got it to recognise the drives again. This would suggest to me that in fact the problem is not the HDD but perhaps related to the motherboard.
     
    Last edited: Apr 9, 2008
  4. Merlanni

    Merlanni Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    Sata Hdd whit a Xp version has a little problem of its own. To read the sata drive windows need you to load a driver whit the floppy disk during the installation process.

    1: you need the drivers which are located on the motherboard driver cd. If no floppy disk is available, try to let us know which board you have. (It can be done whit a fashdisk)
    2: Windows asks for them during the first stage. the screen is blue It ask a question to which you must press f6. It will load the drivers from the floppydisk. I cannot remember the question but part of it has to do whit raid drivers.
    3: do not forget to let windows format the HDD the long way.

    After re reading the post I am not sure anymore that this is the issue.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2008
  5. Tarrasque

    Tarrasque Whoever said Paladins had to be charismatic? ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Apologies for the delay in replying. I have to travel all the way uni to access the internet as my halls charge a small fortune for it.

    @ Chaz - Have downloaded Hardware Monitor and will see what it says.

    As an aside have now had my computer claim that SMART had failed on both drives - now I'm fairly certain that it's something other than the HDD!
     
  6. Tarrasque

    Tarrasque Whoever said Paladins had to be charismatic? ★ SPS Account Holder Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!) Torment: Tides of Numenera SP Immortalizer (for helping immortalize Sorcerer's Place in the game!)

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    Ok I've run the Hardware monitor, giving the following results.

    http://i302.photobucket.com/albums/nn87/Tarrasque123456/HWMonitorOutput.jpg

    The voltage bits are way beyond my level of computing knowledge - unless it said something stupid such as 0V or 12V I'm not sure I'd spot it.

    The AUXTIN appears high, but kept switching between the high value and the lower 36 degrees one.

    Other than that, I can't see anything obvious.
     
  7. Merlanni

    Merlanni Veteran New Server Contributor [2012] (for helping Sorcerer's Place lease a new, more powerful server!)

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    You did not re-install windows on the old disk? You just repaired it? My hardware monitor scan was very different then yours son I cannot comment on that. mine had no AUxtin.
     
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