PC DOCTORS! (1 Viewer)

[swingkid]

MY PC is fucked.
Help!!!

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The story
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Ok, the pc is a Dell Demension 4400 that I got about 3 or 4 years ago.
Worked fine up until now.

Last year I installed a new Seagate 120GB extra hard-drive myself as a slave.

About a month ago, I could hear what sounded like, what I thought was the CD Drive struggling, but thought it would pass. Then while copying a CDR the pc just went to a blue screen.

I was unable to turn it on, except for say, every 15th time I'd try.

And that would take about 15minute to boot up/

I then figured it was probably the hard drive that failed.

After a while I reinstalled windows on the pc, thinking this would sort out my problem.

So, it installed its self it seemed on the large hardrive, without over writing my data.

(It originally booted from the dell hardrive, where i had all the programs, etc installed.)

So this worked fine for a while (except it took a while to boot up)

Now, it just wont boot up at all. Says it can not find the hard drive.

Tried to sort it out by changing the connection leads (IDE/ Scarts?) to see if it was them that were faulty, but it didnt help at all.

So anyway, I'm fed up trying to fix it by myself, and just wondering would anyone reccomend someone that would be able to help me ?

Thanks.

 

[zebra heart attack]

which ever hard drive died just take it out. if its dead its dead and will slow down your computer to bits if its trying to use it for temp files etc.

and make the other one the master. formatting it and doing a fresh install of windows would prob be best. (else put a new drive as the master, put windows on that and youll still have all the files on your working hardrive).

i brought my pc to one of those pc doctor places in clontarf years ago. they dont have a breeze. some chancer who just sets up a business.

one of my friends bought a 200GB hard drive a while ago and it died a month later. got it changed and the second one dies too. and yeah they make a funny scratching noise. quality seems to have dived, while sizes trampoline up.

 

[swingkid]

which ever hard drive died just take it out. if its dead its dead and will slow down your computer to bits if its trying to use it for temp files etc.

and make the other one the master. formatting it and doing a fresh install of windows would prob be best. (else put a new drive as the master, put windows on that and youll still have all the files on your working hardrive).

i brought my pc to one of those pc doctor places in clontarf years ago. they dont have a breeze. some chancer who just sets up a business.

one of my friends bought a 200GB hard drive a while ago and it died a month later. got it changed and the second one dies too. and yeah they make a funny scratching noise. quality seems to have dived, while sizes trampoline up.

Thanks aron.
Yeah, I tried all that stuff you mentioned, but it didnt work....
Pc is not recognising any new drives i put in it.

Beginning to believe what they say about dell pc's being made to self destruct after a few years!!! ha

 

[zebra heart attack]

That's shit. No ideas so.

You can't even change your motherboard if that's fecked because dell have their own "custom" power supply.

 

[swingkid]

yeah, dell are some boyo's alright...

 

[cookiemonster]

you could take out the new HD and try and install it as a slave on someone else's PC just to make sure that it isn't the problem.

 

[hanley]

think if a hard drive has a problem, or had a problem coming up it'll tell you just as you boot
down load speedfan

its a program which gets information from sensors in your harddrives, if there getting near there problems and shit like that

 

[Theseus Mock]

we have a stack of wasted hard-drives from dell machines in work (2/3 year old machines). best thing you could do is get a new HD and just make a clone of the banjaxed one (that's if you can still get some life out of it.)

 

[RSJ]

I'd go with cookie's advice and try your drives on someone else's computer, most likely that'll throw up a few answers.

It's ironic, i work as a computer technician, working on machines ranging from 30k-1.5mil, but i can barely fix a home box.

Oh and dell suck. Everyone knows someone who can build them a machine, tis the way to go ha.

 

[snap-apple]

could it be a faulty or loose bus cable connecting the drives to the motherboard? i doubt both drives have failed (unless the machines gets moved around alot). if it aint the cable and it aint the drives then it's almost got to be the motherboard.

 

[pete]

what wattage is the PSU? i've had drives throw a wobbly when i've overloaded me PSU so i have

 

[swingkid]

what wattage is the PSU? i've had drives throw a wobbly when i've overloaded me PSU so i have

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