i think its a hard drive problem...

[~//!nD~]

hello there..
i have 2 computers networked in a LAN, and i decided to copy files from one computer to another (lets say pentium to amd). After the files transfer had completed the computer froze, so i decided to reset it. When the computer started up pass the memory check it stops at a black screen leaving a little flashing underscore in the top left hand corner. When i reset it does the same thing over again. So i decided to shut the power off for a while.
i started it up again and when it gets to detecting IDE drives it cant find my hdd! i hav to go through the bios and auto detect from there, but even though it never gets pass the black screen when i go to reset it. The hdd also makes a weird rythmic loading noise...
help plz! i have a IBM 40G 7400rpm HDD

[Jon]

Doesn't sound good for the hard drive. I got the same thing from two older hard drives that died on me a couple months ago.

Have you tried booting to a Win98 startup disk? See if you it will let you do that and run a CHKDSK on it if possible.

[~//!nD~]

ahh yeahhs good idea! thanx
the thing is... i dont have a windows 95 or 98 boot disk, what makes it even worst is that my other system which is running has windows xp, i dont think that has a boot disk maker?

[Placid]

Look in the boot disk section on this page.
http://www.biosmods.com/download.php

[~//!nD~]

ok thanx!
but im afraid the computer wont read the boot disk...
its like if its ignored

[Al Capone]

just put the hard disk from the other computer in this computer and see if it works

[turd]

here is a link to their (IBM) page with the utilities to check that drive if u can get it recognized http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm

[~//!nD~]

al capone, im afraid i dont know too much about plugging in peripherals... so its kinda hard to put the hdd in the other comp!
thanx tho

turd, how does the IBM utility work? because i cant access the hdd on the computer...

[turd]

well u download the drive fitness program, follow the extract instructions(place it into a floppy from a winx comp) take the floppy and boot into your computer with the suspected bad drive and let it see what it can about your drive.

i think those ibm xp drives have a high, early fail rate so be prepaired to take it in, it is most likely under warrenty?

there is a lot of steps involved in isolating your problem like reseting the bios, and the stated remove and check the drive in a dif system/swap but if u are hesitant to crack that case u can hope for the drive utility to work, go to the shop or get dirty and follow the advice u get here,

i think people are glad to help, but its usually a procedural process of hands- on elimination/rule outs

[Clean_Baldy]

Hey. I had this problem before. Of course, it took me 5 hours of tinkering and stuff, but in the end, I lost all of my data anyways. My problem was that the harddrive unpartitioned itself which corrupted everything on the computer. I tried Partition Magic to fix it and put the partitions back in without reformatting, but it didnt work. I ended up repartitioning, reformatting, and starting over.

Well, heres a couple steps you could do to check things out:

1. boot up, and go into bios.
2. Change your boot up to put the disk drive to boot first, then cd rom then hard disk
3. put in a windows CD or windows boot disk
4. get to the C:/ thru the boot disk, and type FDISK
dont do anything that says delete partition...
just find out if it is still reading your partitions. Get back to us.