Hard drive dead?

Discussion in 'General Hardware' started by fiddler, Aug 3, 2016.

  1. fiddler

    fiddler Newbie

    Hi guys:wave:

    Good to see you're still going strong. How's life in KL?

    Our son's Win7 computer started playing up - booting was a bit erratic apparently - he didn't tell me until the HD died. Well, I assume that's what's happened: the boot screen displays no HD present, and asks to insert an OS disc in CD drive. BIOS sees no HDs.

    I removed the SATA drive, plugged it into my system and it didn't show up at all, although it hummed and vibrated, so I guess the power is getting to it.

    Does it sound like the right diagnosis to you, please?

    So all I have to do is get a new HD and install Win7 again off the same OEM disc we still have, as it is the same mobo? (Hoping that it wasn't a mobo issue - unlikely given that the HD wasn't spotetd by my system)
     
  2. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    Yup, your diagnosis sound right. The HDD is most likely dead. Installing a new OS using the OEM disc should not be a problem. If it still doesn't activate, just make a call to Microsoft, and they should be able to sort out the activation problem over the phone.
     
  3. fiddler

    fiddler Newbie

    Thanks Chai. I've ordered a new HD and will let you know how I get on.
     
  4. fiddler

    fiddler Newbie

    A bit fiddly but I'm getting there. BIOS wouldn't see a CD drive so I used an external USB drive.
    OS installed, activated, but refused to update. This seems to be quite a problem nowadays if you reinstall Win7. I tried various things, then found this:

    Search for Windows Updates takes forever? - A possible solution

    and installed the 5 x KB updates in the first box, one at time, then the March 2016 one, and that satisfied the Update process - it found 176 files to download and install - a process that took several hours!

    Now the only problem is the Netgear wireless PCI adapter that displays a Code 10, despite removing it, downloading and installing driver from Netgear
    NETGEAR Support | Downloads | WG311v3
    and reinstalling the adapter.

    An old DVD/CD drive that was hanging about seems to work ok now, so I don't know why the BIOS didn't see it or the other one. I thought that maybe the mobo was faulty, and was thinking of trying a SATA drive, but maybe no need now.
     
  5. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    There's actually an update that fixes the long Windows update problem, it also causes high cpu usage on one of the processes.

    Sent from my E5803 using Tapatalk
     
  6. fiddler

    fiddler Newbie

    The Netgear wireless adapter WG311v3 doesn't like 4 GB RAM! I had found 2 x 1GB sticks DDR2 on an old mobo and added them - BIOS and Win 7 accepted them, but I discovered in the installation notes that "for Win7 32 and Win 64, If the user has 4GB or more of ram installed on PC, it could show code 10 error and fail for installation" - even installing with 2 GB RAM then adding 2 more after installation.
    USB Edimax hanging around does a better job.

    IDE CD/DVD drives don't seem to work, so ordered a SATA one, arriving today.
     
  7. Chai

    Chai Administrator Staff Member

    Wow, that must be an old card. Have you considered USB Wifi? It's relatively cheap these days.
     
  8. fiddler

    fiddler Newbie

    Yes :mrgreen: There was one hanging about. Edimax and it has a stronger signal than the other old one.

    Thanks for the help Chai :thumb: SATA drive is installed and all is good now, albeit on a pretty old mobo! But the repair cost only about £55 and a few hours work and a bit of head-scratching!
     

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