BIOS reset after long storage not detecting drive/s

[MasterMind420]

Well I'm new here so hello everyone.

1st off, I'd say I understand the fundamentals.

Teaching myself how to program for android with eclipse (Java), gonna go to c/++ and python next and work on NDK for android. Also dabbling with Linux and offensive security. This brought me to the point where my Linux partition got wiped out for one reason or another so I had to recover the partition and data as it said unallocated after the wipe, (I think it was either regzooka or taking ownership of C:\. Anyways thats taken care of no sweat.

But, then I got intrigued by the process of data recovery, so I pulled out the old desktop and got it hooked up, to my dismay, no boot. So I fumbled around with the BIOS a little (only ever used it to set up boot from usb) and couldn't figure it out for the life of me, I searched around google for a few hours and learned alot but didn't feel it was relevant or maybe still in denial.

A few specs
HP
XP
2.08 GHz
512 ram
120 GB Ultra DMA or PATA (i think those are =)
1x CD RW
1x DVD-rom
Nvidia Geforce 4 mx 64MB DDR

Ok well, one thing about the BIOS
it was reset for sure. The date was 01/01/2001 when the bios was made in 2003.

The Primary master and slave as well as the secondary master and slave all say [undetected] or something those lines (been a few hours). I looked through some setting and am thinking, how could nothing be detected? the CD RW, DVD, HDD nothing but the floppy and usb ports are detected.

Do I need to configure the BIOS to specific setting when it resets or should it always reset to be able to detect all drives?

Either way I'm taking the DT to a friends house who is a lot more tech savy then I (he's been at it since middle school) I'll ask if he can plug it in to one of his n see if its HDD malfunction, if not I suppose its either the settings on the BIOS, or the connections to the motherboard arn't right. I know it got sent to Geek Squad back in '06 (still had the sticker) so I suppose there is a possibility they didn't wire it back up right.

Any suggestions or do I pretty much got it understood?

Oh yeah, I live booted into linux so I'm sure the motherboard is fine, also in linux no HDD or CD players were found in my computer.

*Root Down from Beastie Boys playin in the background*

 

[Frosty is a Snowman]

you say your friend has been at it since middle school, this could mean they have just left middle school this year, or left they in 1792 and are in fact a vampire of some sort and will never die lol

anyway your friends age to one side.

It might help if we new the make and version of the BIOS (eg. Award, AMI etc.)
On some of the old ones you had an option to detect, or had to select the drive you wanted to detect, eg. Primary Master, then press enter, and this would detect the device that was connected, and populate the field.

 

[Joe C]

Chances probably are that the cmos battery went dead from being in storage, if this had a raid set up or something like that or if the bios default settings are ahci and they might need to be set to IDE to detect the drives. You can get new 2032 batteries almost anywhere for $3-$4.00

 

[MasterMind420]

Right on Frosty; We are both 25.

The Bios info I found was American Megatrends

Bios revision 3.07 4/21/03

I'll take some pics so you can see.

I unplugged the pc for about 5 mins and the green led went off, the bios still had the correct date I set yesterday, perhaps the battery is hanging on for dear life, I'll have to pick up a new one.


UPDATE EDIT: I pulled the side off the tower to get a closer look at whats inside, everything 'looks' connected but maybe not, I can feel the HDD vibrating, humming, but not really making any loud noises or clicks, maybe its ok, about 10 years old so chances are slim to none. Funny thing is that it will check the dvd and cd drives for boot up data, at first I had to get a cd out of the cd-rw drive, the motor that opens it has failed so I had to use a pin i the little hole to pop it open. After that it went to blue HP screen with f1 and f10 options, setup and recovery, if I do recovery it just sits for a long time and then asks for boot. Thats when I insterted a usb stick with Linux on it and I got boot from there, it went to grub and then to Linux, I was able to surf the net etc, but if I wanted to save anything it would have ha to be on the 16 GB usb stick, I guess i I had 4 32gb usb sticks I'd be set LOL!!!

 

[MasterMind420]

I managed to backup the data on the old hdd. It worked like a charm, we hooked it as an external hdd and made a byte to byte back up image.

So the ultra dma hdd works great, it must be the bios. Where should I start looking for a users manual or configuration guide?

 

[Joe C]

Brand name, model and serial number of your pc will help someone find the manual you need, I also noticed to made the statement in your first post that it was an HP pc but your bios screen looks to be from a retail motherboard? If the pc does not have the original board, then post the model and revision number of the motherboard.
I also see a 2003 date in the bios screen you have. If the pc is that old, then check the capacitors on the board too, if any of their tops look like they are not totally flat, or if you see any residue on the tops....then you'll need a new board. It is possible to re-cap the board but for it's age....it would not make any sense to do that

 

[MasterMind420]

Thanks for the reply, I'll crack Rusty up in the morning, check out the board, do a bit of googling if I find any info and If I can't figure it out or if the capacitors look bad I'll get back to ya here with what I found either way.