Hjalp! Harddrive error!

[James]

Archonsod?

So, yesterday, I typed 'phun' into the address bar, and hit enter. The browser headed towards the phun wiki (I assume), and then froze up. Not only the browser, but the whole computer. I could not alt+f4, ctrl+alt+del, or even press the power button to get options (I could move the mouse). Anyway, I did the thing where I held down the power button, and killed it manually.

However, when I restarted, it loaded the first screen (where it says 'Dell', and has a white bar loading), then paused, then popped up a message that said (basically): 'No system in boot drive - strike f1 to retry boot - strike f2 to open setup'. F1 did nothing, and f2 didn't help. Nor did f12, when I restarted. When I ran diagnostics, it said there was no harddrive found.

After turning on and off for a while, instead of the 'strike f1...' screen, a white screen with gray lettering showed up. In essence, it said the same thing, but it gave instructions on how to fix it:

1. push module all the way in
2. power system off
3. push power button to restart

Press esc to ignore, and continue booting

So I tried the first thing, which failed, and thought all was lost. Then, eventually, I hit esc, and the computer loads apparently normally. I've noticed some things, like CD-RWs weren't read (or all discs, I don't know), and the green activity light stays on more, but that's it.

Anyway, my question is if anyone knows how to fix this problem. I'm going to 'check disc' for errors, but otherwise, it looks to me I may have to reformat.

Any ideas that would bypass that?

 

[Cymro]

If you have the windows CD, boot from it. It might find your HDD that way. Press R to enter the recovery console.

1) chkdsk /p /r
2) fixmbr
3) fixboot

It may be worth doing a repair install after this, if not, take the disk to another computer and get your stuff off it.


But if it's still not recognised by that point, you will have to ask Archonsod about it

 

[James]

It is recognized. It works. It just says there is an error, and that it can't load, but I ignore the error and it works fine.

 

[Archonsod]

What's the exact error text?

To be honest, it sounds to me more like you've been playing with your boot priorities; or Dell have been silly with them. Try unplugging any USB peripherals and remove all disks from the drives and see if you still get it shouting. If not, the Dell genius who configured it probably thought you'd prefer to check USB drives, disk drives or some equally stupid place for Windows rather than the actual hard drive.

 

[James]

Let me just say that I've had this computer for 3-4 years without a problem.

It always used to find the harddrive. I assume it's something to do with my forced kill.

 

[Archonsod]

The MBR could be borked, but then it shouldn't accept the disk at all. If it's loading fine then the error is more than likely something to do with Windows rather than the disk. Without knowing what the error actually says though I'm firing blind.

 

[James]

I think I found the problem. It seems the disk drive is messed up. It doesn't work, as I said, and is also the first boot item. When I popped it out, the comp booted properly.

 

[Seff]

Completely unrelated? Where did you learn to almost spell 'help' in Danish? Try 'hjælp!'.

 

[James]

I just spelled it so it looked awesome. I didn't know it was actually almost Danish. Awesome!

 

[Seff]

The Scandinavian way comes naturally to you, so that doesn't really surprise me

 

[Worbah]

On a related note, my PC has started to claim that my F-partition is not formatted. chkdsk?