A slightly concerning event... [PC Related]

[slicer15]

Well...just now, when I came in from school, I tried switching on my PC, and it wouldn't detect the Primary Master...that is, the Hard Drive. I was very frustrated and being confident enough about computers (I built this one myself) I opened it up and fiddled with the wires a little. No success. I actually unplugged the power lead and plugged it back in, and did the same with the IDE lead, both on the motherboard and HDD. Still no success. Then I removed the IDE lead completely and replaced it with a different one and hey presto! It worked! So I thought it was the IDE lead gone dodgy. I switched it off and swapped the leads round again to make sure, but it booted normally this time!

So, should I be worried? I mean, it works fine now, but only after replacing the lead and then swapping them back. I now have the same lead plugged in that couldn't detect the HDD before.

If it's any help, the fuse blew yesterday and I had to replace that. Could the power somehow have partially damaged the IDE lead or something?

Any advice greatly appreciated. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 11-11-2004, 09:33 AM: Message edited by: slicer15 ]

[Bozos of Bones]

What case, motherboard, hard drive and power supply?

[slicer15]

Um...Case is an iCute one...I don't know anything other than that. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

The Motherboard is an Asrock K7S8x

The Hard Drive is a Maxtor 80GB

I can't remember the power supply...550V or W I believe, depending on which sounds more reasonable.

[Bozos of Bones]

It's 550 W, but I was hoping to the brand/model maybe. But anyway, I think this might have been a temporary problem caused by the fuse blowing. I atleast hope so. BUT to be sure, I'd take my hard disk to be checked up if I were you, as my friends disk had a story that starts like this and ends in the burning of the motherboard and the processor. Faulty hard drive power in was the problem.

[slicer15]

Okay, thanks for the warning. I'll definitely do that now. [img]smile.gif[/img] Again, my thanks. If the hard drive does turn out to have a faulty power-in, then you've just saved me a lot of trouble. ^_^

[Intrepid]

I would back up in case, because believe me it would suck to loose 80 gig, i've lost around 60 gig and i was so happy i did a backup just a few days ago.
So i HIGHLY reccomend backup, if nothing else, just in case.

[slicer15]

Yeah, I definitely know about that...I need a new HDD anyway since I've practically filled the 80GB one, and I was so worried that the Hard Drive had died...of course, partitioning helps a little, but it's not as safe as making a backup.

By the way, did you simply copy your data across to a different hard drive?

[Intrepid]

I copied a lot of stuff i wanted, and didn't worry about other files, it took me 45 CDs (at that point i wished for a dvd burner, but a 52x cd burner is pretty good) although i took me a long time.
That was before my current harddrive setup, i can't imagine backing up this one up, it's a RAID array of 2 120 gig harddrives, amazingly great for storage and speed, but if it fails i'm f***ed.

[Animal]

I've owned 3 Maxtor's and all started with the very same symptom's before finally dying. I haven't bought a Maxtor since and never will again. All 3 died within 6 months of new, and I finally got sick of RMA'ing the stupid things, so I just ran it through my drill press a few times and bought a couple of WD's.