Windows won't load up?

[Yek]

Not sure what key for you, usually F12, the boot from USB Mass Storage, CD, Floppy etc selection screen.

 

[Xiahou]

Ok, I tried something.

I took the HDD cables out and started with a windows xp disc in.

It loaded up from the disc, and I got to the menu. When I pressed r for repair, it didn't detect any hard drives.

So I tried it again, and quickly put in my HDD cables as soon as it was loading from the disc. Unfortunately, never detected any hard drives.

So I tried with all the cables connected - it doesn't boot from the windows xp disc (even with primary boot as CDROM).

...

 

[Xiahou]

Hi,

Now for some reason it won't detect my hard drives at all in BIOS. I have moved a few cables about but still i think it is all set up right.

Is there anything in BIOS that might be doingthis? Or is it a hardware problem?

 

[Yek]

From the sounds of things its a hardware problem. Let us know what everythings hooked up to.

 

[Xiahou]

Hi again

Getting a bit / moderately / extremely frustrated with this. I just want to get this fixed now. Thinking about taking it to pc world or something, giving it to them handing over cash and just getting them to fix it. Wonder how much it would cost...


The worst thing for me would be losing all the stuff I had. Hopefully my HDDs aren't screwed up too badly so i can transfer all my stuff onto a new HDD or so..

I'll try set everything up again tonight but doubt if I will get it fixed at all.

 

[Yek]

Don't stress!

Again could you post your setup and what you have connected to what.

 

[Xiahou]

ok..

new hdd in, windows installed on it, loads up fine.

Old HDDs connected.. are not detected.

Last night they were, then I just moved some cables about and all of a sudden they wouldn't detect in BIOS. Then again, my CDROM wouldn't either for some reason. So now I'm wondering if somehow I messed up my HDDs when I could have waited another day and got all my .. 2 years worth? of files over to my new HDD..

(No education lesson on backuping files please )

Is there any reason it just stopped working?

Any ideas what I can do?? I really really don't want to have lost all these files...

I've seen some stuff like putting the HDD in a freezer for a while. Is there anything I can do to try get my files/data back from my old HDDs? I see stuff on the news on TV with cases, PCs completely destroyed but data was able to be gotten back. I'll just hope

 

[Yek]

Firstly, let's not go putting them in the freezer

Have you got another system to try them in, so that we can establish if its a HD problem or a system problem?

 

[Xiahou]

Tried on another computer and it wouldn't detect (but my hard drive is just a 40GB old one and mybro's pc is new - maby i set the jumpers wrong?).


At the moment, my new shiny hdd is detected, it is on the cable select option. What should my old HDDs be on?

Also, if i was to try put just my old HDD in, what should the jumper be set to?

Any BIOS settings that might not be helping?

 

[Xiahou]

OK, when I try load up the working HDD with another, it comes up with a disk read error

i've been checking online for info on retrieving data, but it all seems to say that it's extremely expensive