Should I dump the motherboard?

  • Thread starter Thread starter kawipoo
  • Start date Start date
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kawipoo

I have had an HP 9795c computer for 3 years. The other day I started up
the computer and received the message "No Operating system". I then noticed
that the bios was no longer recognizing the two hard drives on the IDE
channel.
I then replaced the ribbon and the master harddrive and still ran into the
same problem. The bios would not recognize the hard drives. I then removed
the slave drive no improvement. I then moved the hard drives to the second
IDE channel with the same results. I moved the DVD burner and DVD rom to the
IDE channel which contained the hard drives. They were recognized by the
bios.
I then replaced the CMOS battery and the power supply same results.
Can anyone else think of any other items I should check before dumping the
motherboard?
 
If the CD drives are recognized, the IDE channels are functioning. If the
hard drives are connected to the same IDE channel, and are not recognized,
get hold of the 2 floppy set of disks for Partition Magic 8.01. Boot up the
system with these disks and see what it says about the condition of your
drives. I am betting that the drives will be shown as "not formatted" or
they will be seen as having no partition at all!

If that is the case, your information is still there, but can not be
accessed. You will need a third party program, such as EasyRecovery
Professional (www.ontrack.com), to retrieve your important files. When that
is done, you can partition and format the drives again to use them.

Don't know what causes this, but I have seen it 4-5 times in the past 2
years on one of my own machines, and on the machines of a few clients!

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)
 
You may want to look for buldging capacitors on the motherboard or
capacitors that appear to be oozing a brown substance. If you see any of
those conditions then you difinitely have to replace the motherboard. There
was bunch of bad capacitors that went out on boards a few years ago and
those are the symptoms. I just repaired a machine with the same symtoms as
your board in it turned out to be the bad capacitor issue. You can read
about it here: http://www.badcaps.net/

blariz
 
Partition magic does not recognize the disks. It comes up with an error
which states no hard disk installed. This is what I would expect since the
bios does not recognize the hard drives.
 
Try the drives connected to another computer and see if they are recognized!

I find it hard to believe that 2 drives went south, at exactly the same
time, unless something extraneous to the computer did them in (power surge).
If a surge, why didn't the CD drives go???

Interesting problem!

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)
 
The drives work find on another computer.
Richard Urban said:
Try the drives connected to another computer and see if they are recognized!

I find it hard to believe that 2 drives went south, at exactly the same
time, unless something extraneous to the computer did them in (power surge).
If a surge, why didn't the CD drives go???

Interesting problem!

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

rom
Click to expand...
 
bad power supply 12 to hard drives, try a different lead.


<JMak> wrote in message
| Bad cable ?
|
| Swap the cables and see it it works.
|
|
|
| On Mon, 15 Mar 2004 15:43:50 -1000, "kawipoo"
|
| >I have had an HP 9795c computer for 3 years. The other
day I started up
| >the computer and received the message "No Operating
system". I then noticed
| >that the bios was no longer recognizing the two hard
drives on the IDE
| >channel.
| >I then replaced the ribbon and the master harddrive and
still ran into the
| >same problem. The bios would not recognize the hard
drives. I then removed
| >the slave drive no improvement. I then moved the hard
drives to the second
| >IDE channel with the same results. I moved the DVD burner
and DVD rom to the
| >IDE channel which contained the hard drives. They were
recognized by the
| >bios.
| >I then replaced the CMOS battery and the power supply
same results.
| >Can anyone else think of any other items I should check
before dumping the
| >motherboard?
| >
|
 
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