http://www.bootdisk.com/ 275 August 2006
The BootLIST
Welcome to the 275th Edition of The BootLIST
INDEX
1) Primary Hard Disk Not Found
2) Hard Drive In A Verticle Position
3) "Clunking Sound" During POST
4) Motherboard/CPU/Case Upgrade Niggle
5) Backing Up To Old Hard Drives
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1) Primary Hard Disk Not Found
Bingle asked - Unable to boot my Dell. I get this message when I power on: Primary hard disk drive 0 not found. No bootable device(s) selected.
***
1. The bios may have lost it's hard drive settings due to a bad cmos battery or mild surge. Try auto or auto detect and see if the bios
finds it.
2. The hard drive may be dead.
3. A data or power cable may have come loose or became loose fitting, or has gone bad.
4. The bios may have lost the boot order setting. Make sure the hard drive is listed as a boot device.
5. Another drive on the same channel as your good bootable drive may have gone bad or the cables going to it need replacing.
This may result in your good, primary boot drive not being able to work until the bad drive is removed or replaced.
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2) Hard Drive In A Verticle Position
TJ inquired - It's too complicated to remove the old HDD and there's no room to install the new drive horizontally without pulling everything to pieces either. But it is easy to stand the new Maxtor drive on its side and secure it on the base of the case.
Will turning the HDD shaft from the normal vertical position to the horizontal axis it will be on if the unit stands on its side, cause mechanical problems to the bearings in the long term?
*** It doesn't matter what position the hard drive is in. It is designed to work on any axis.
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3) "Clunking Sound" During POST
NormanL wrote - When I turn my computer on I hear a clunking sound every few seconds for a half a minute when the computer is posting and then the computer fails to detect a hard drive and windows does not run. If I turn it on again it boots up perfectly. What is the problem?
*** Either your primary hard drive is failing or another drive in the system is failing. Either way you dont have much time to save your data and replace the bad drive.
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4) Motherboard/CPU/Case Upgrade Niggle
Ian complained - I wanted a faster motherboard and processor and new case so I installed them, put in only my old video card and my ram and the system POSTED. So all was good so far. Then I connected my hard drives and cdrom drives and even tho I got the "power led" lit up on the motherboard when I hit the front power button nothing happened. Even the cpu fan didn't spin. It acted just like having a bad power supply.
I know that discount cases may come with a bad power supply but this one worked just a few minutes ago. What do I check?
*** Any time you move parts around that just be enough to kill an "about to go" drive. Disconnect all the power and data from the drives and see if it POSTs again. Chances are it will. Chances are one of the drives you moved over to the new case, mobo, and cpu has just died. Connect each unit one-by-one so find out what hardware just went bad. Note that a bad HDD may cause the PC not to even turn on.
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5) Backing Up To Old Hard Drives
Aunti Rosie From Alabama posted - I loved your advice many years ago when you advised that I use my older hard drives for data backup in either my computer or other computers on the network in my family home. As you advised I have been using Second Copy to auto backup my most important data folders to older hard drives on my home network. Your advice has saved me many hours of time.
My question is all the older drives I have been backing up to seem to work perfectly, but some are very old like from 1998 and may even be 5 or 10 gigs in size. Should I wait for these to fail or should I replace them in advance as a preventative maintenance measure?
*** The longest hard drive warranty is generally 3 years tho some hard drive makers sometimes offer longer warranties for an additional fee. Hard drives often last 5+ years in constant use. An 8 year old drive should be replaced before it dies when you least expect it or need it most. I'd backup my data to hard drives 5 years old or younger. Yes, I also insist on burning CDs on a regular basis that include your most important data.
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