Help Needed Fast - Parents Business PC DEAD

I don't think so actually

Warning Do not use the procedure that is described in this article if your computer has an OEM-installed operating system. The system hive on OEM installations creates passwords and user accounts that did not exist previously. If you use the procedure that is described in this article, you may not be able to log back into the recovery console to restore the original registry hives.
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It is an OEM version of Windows XP Home that was bought with the components in April when i built the machine.

Thanks for showing me that though, it's interesting to find out what its about

Current situation:

Deleted the partiton with Wipeout, ran FDISK from a win98 floppy and is now formatting to FAT32 (just like you said Flops)

Just gonna go see if it has crashed...

Oh screw this, it crashed on 3%.

Trying windows XP setup again. If that fails, and you all think its a knackered drive and theres nothing that can be done to fix it, it's a phone call to OCUK on monday.

OEM drives come with a 1 year RTB warranty right?!

They better do, parents wont be happy when they find out they got to shell out £50 for a new SATA drive!
 
Thats the standard Windows default "disclaimer". I've run that fix on DELL's, a Compaq laptop and a personal OEM pre-install I did for my employer ;)

They always put that to save themselves ownership of all things.... :rolleyes:
 
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o. Darn! bloody Microsoft

Well it's trying to format in windows (again) at the moment - hopefully it might decide to work though chances are small.
 
Ok. We got a bit further!

It successfully formatted after i messed about for a bit!

What did i do?

1. Run Wipeout
2. Run Fdisk
3. Fixmbr (not that there should have been one to fix)
4. Disabled all onboard stuff in BIOS e.g. 1394, LAN, Parallel
5. Unlugged printers, network
6. Wiggled the SATA cable a bit

And then it worked (so far, its copying files over now)

Im intrigued as to what stopped it formatting in the first place.
 
Ok. Latest Update.

Sorry to post like 10 times in a row, but i'm posting as i go to keep you all updated on what the current situation is.


Right now, Windows has formatted the hard drive successfully, and copied over the files needed for installation.

It then restarts (it should do this) to continue with the installation. It gets to the boot screen (with the green bar that goes across saying WINDOWS XP HOME) and then i get the Blue Screen of Death saying i should run CHKDSK /F to check for bad sectors and it has some weird error code which means nothing to me.

I then thought "Hmm... what if i plug the HDD into the Silicon Image controller instead of the ICHR5"

I did so, got the same error, and the HDD then made a VERY nast noise. Like the sound old drives make when they are loading stuff but much more intensive and much higher pitched.

What do you all think ??
 
Sounds like the drive is a gonner, everything seems to point to that now. How old was the drive?

(I'm running off to back my stuff up now!)
 
I think i built that machine in April, so way under a year!! Much younger than my drives, which still are going strong (and touch wood they will carry on doing so as if one goes the array is useless)

I will email OCUK about it either today or tomorrow, as it should still be under warranty.

Well thanks for your help guys.
 
I know this is going to sound wierd but have you changed the Serial ATA cable??

I had a Western Digital raptor do the same and it was a bad cable!
 
no i haven't changed the cable, just wiggled it.

I'll give that a go when i get home from work later
 
christopherpostill said:
I will email OCUK about it either today or tomorrow, as it should still be under warranty.

Well thanks for your help guys.
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shame about the harddive

when u ring OCUK make sure you are agressive with them
this time last year they sent me a faulty motherboard and it took them a whole 2 months to get me my money back!

they are very awful at dealing with returns/warranty stuff so make sure u pester the buggers properly!

good luck.
 
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psd99 said:
shame about the harddive

when u ring OCUK make sure you are agressive with them
this time last year they sent me a faulty motherboard and it took them a whole 2 months to get me my money back!

they are very awful at dealing with returns/warranty stuff so make sure u pester the buggers properly!

good luck.
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That's gold advice. Really!!! You gotta hassle the hell out of them, they can be very slack!
 
Shorty said:
That's gold advice. Really!!! You gotta hassle the hell out of them, they can be very slack!
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yes thanks, so i see you have also had an altercation with these people!

its so strange u email them they tell u one thing
u ring the gits and they tell u something else
 
this maybe off the beaten trak a little bit, but a good tools for recovering data from corrupt windows installations is Winternals ERD Commander, boots from an I386 folder on the CD. pretty cool tool.
 
I have all the data that i need backed up, the important stuff any way, company accounts spreadsheets, photos, that kinda stuff.

Got back from work, tried a brand new Abit SATA cable (was still sealed in bag) and i got same problem.

One thing that may be worth saying is occasionally, maybe every 1 in 4 times you turn the computer on, the northbridge fan makes a crazy noise, like the fan blades are catching on a power cable or retention screw, at 5300rpm You turn the computer off and then on again and 7 times out of 10 it will shut up and work perfectly, and yes the fan DOES spin, i did check to see that it was going round.

Ok so i put the new cable on, turned it on, computer made that god awful noise (above) and well it didnt not post, it just had to think about it for a good minute, and what you saw was weird - the BIOS self check screen file until the line that shows what processor you have

It was like

Abit IC7-g blablablablalbablablabla BIOS info
Int

then it froze

After a good minute (i went off to find the camera but wasn't quick enough) i came back, just as i was about to take a pic, it unfroze, and continued normally.

Don't know if it's all one BIIIG coincidence, but am at end of tether with this PC now. Grrr.

Thanks for the advice with OCUK btw, i will make sure to be assertive.

Chris
 
Evening,

I recently RMA'd a Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 10, 160GB drive back to them, i rang them up, explained the noise it was making and they immediately agreed it was a bit of bashing done in transit to me that had caused the fault.

I got an RMA number by email about half an hour after i rang them and i packaged the item correctly.

A few days later they emailed me saying they had the item and were going to test it, then they emailed me saying i had the funds back in my account as the HDD was tested as faulty.

So i haven't had any problems with RMA's yet with them,

Just planning my next upgrade now, as i've started getting xmas cards from relatives with money enclosed, so im starting to make a stock pile ready for the new graphics card and another 512mb ram.

Chris,
 
Not trying to be a pro here, just a suggestion.
Some viruses are writing to MBR and you might have to delete the partittion and create new one and/or to edit the MBR secors.
Also, I would try to reset the BIOS or to update it.
It is very unlikely that a virus will corrupt the BIOS, but I would try everything before changing any hardware.

Also, I had a friend call me last week with the same problem by the way - he said that he changed the HD once, worked for a couple of days and dead again. Maybe its a new virus that infects the BIOS? I never heard of something that will do in from XP.

And get a better antivirus if you fix the problem - I had experienced with norton and I wouldnt recommend it to anyone.
 
I will reset CMOS before i send anything back, i just couldnt see how a virus would affect it.

Funnily enough it was the one thing i forgot to do!!

I did delete all the partitions, format the hard drive AND re-write the MBR, all with no success.

Cheers, Chris
 
If that drive is a paralell device, could you not temporarily hook it up to your machine, format within Windows just to be on the safe side, write several Gb of data to it and see if you can access that stuff OK?

It may give a clue to it's good working or faulty state. Perhaps worth a try.
 
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