hard drive dead or something more serious?

[Firey_chasm]

Hi,

Over the past few weeks I have been experiencing system crashes (not BSOD) it usually just hangs there, and I manually restart the PC.

However this morning I booted up my PC (then went to get breakfast) when I came back my PC was at the desktop and I could move the cursor but I couldnt click on anything (nothing responded).

Assuming a reboot would fix it, I hit the restart button, this time however the system wouldnt load windows (it got stuck on the loading screen - kept looping for ~10mins) so, another reboot and this time it doesnt detect the HD at all.

Putting in my windows disc to see if I could reformat, it detects my storage drive but it doesn't see my old drive.

I am assuming this is just a HD failiure that I can't fix (which doesnt matter as I have a spare HD) but I am more worried if there is a more serious underlying cause.

thanks in advance

[{PGA}AfterShock]

Yup, that's a dead drive and nothing more. Sometimes they give you warning signs shortly before they die like chattering, grinding or just overall louder but sometimes they just take a crap, I wouldn't worry too much about it being anything to do with the mobo or drive controller since it's detecting your storage drive unless you start having probs right off the bat. Does your currently dead drive even spin up when you have it plugged in?

[Firey_chasm]

I didnt check if it spun or not, it just died on me this morning and only had 15mins (was just logging on to check my email) now at work. ill put my spare drive in tonight.

Do the random crashes I was have prior (over the past few weeks) seem like they can be attributed to the HD?

[Vipersfate]

If the computer was experiencing random freezing before with no BSOD, and now it just does a reboot loop at the loading screen for the OS (which is actually a BSOD, just so fast you can't see it), it's possible the HD is bad. I've seen it quite a few times. Find out the Manufacturer of the HD, get their diagnostic tools, and run a test on it.

[Firey_chasm]

nah nothing important at all :D it was my OS drive so, windows vista + drivers, thats all and the drive is ~4years old so worth peanuts too.

got any recomendations with disposal of a HD? just taking a hammer to it will be fine? because since it has been my HD for 4 years its had all my personal info etc on it at some point or other, just generally information I dont want Joe bloggs techy criminal to have.

Viper it wasnt a reboot loop, it just hung on the screen where ther loading bar for vista, it looked as if it was loading fine, it just never stopped then the 3rd time it just didnt recognise the HD as a boot drive. the times it crashed as well it usually just froze rather than rebooting, so definatly not a BSOD (although if I had left it indefinatly maybe one would have occured)

[tuskenraider]

It definately sounds like the drive is dead, but if you happen to experience any further problems of lockups and whatnot, I'd start testing the memory next.

[Firey_chasm]

ok, thanks tusken :)

[Firey_chasm]

hmm, right I installed my spare drive last night and installed windows just fine, it ran alright but then started intermitent freezing for ~30seconds. Now when I turned the PC on this morning I got the same problem as with the other drive yet my storage drive is still visible.

So I am now thinking maybe it is the SATA cble or SATA port. GOing to test this tonight