When I start up my computer, the BIOS loads, and windows will start loading
(or at least the Windows Loading screen shows up) and then I hear a loud
grinding noise. I get a very rapid BSOD, and then it shuts down and starts
up again in the DOS "Your computer did not shut down
properly...bhlahblahblah".

I have two harddrives on the computer, with windows on one, and my data on
another harddrive. Will it be as simple as buying a new hardrive,
installing windows and then I am good to go? (followed by updating all of
my drivers)


--
Marcel Beaudoin and Moogli

"Marcel Beaudoin" wrote in message
. 1.4...
When I start up my computer, the BIOS loads, and windows will start
loading
(or at least the Windows Loading screen shows up) and then I hear a loud
grinding noise. I get a very rapid BSOD, and then it shuts down and starts
up again in the DOS "Your computer did not shut down
properly...bhlahblahblah".

I have two harddrives on the computer, with windows on one, and my data on
another harddrive. Will it be as simple as buying a new hardrive,
installing windows and then I am good to go? (followed by updating all of
my drivers)

No way to tell for sure, but grinding noise does tend to indicate physical
failure of the hard drive.

in rec.pets.dogs.behavior, "sionnach" wrote in
:


"Marcel Beaudoin" wrote in message
. 1.4...
When I start up my computer, the BIOS loads, and windows will start
loading
(or at least the Windows Loading screen shows up) and then I hear a
loud grinding noise. I get a very rapid BSOD, and then it shuts down
and starts up again in the DOS "Your computer did not shut down
properly...bhlahblahblah".

I have two harddrives on the computer, with windows on one, and my
data on another harddrive. Will it be as simple as buying a new
hardrive, installing windows and then I am good to go? (followed by
updating all of my drivers)

No way to tell for sure, but grinding noise does tend to indicate
physical
failure of the hard drive.

*sigh*

I was afraid of that.


--
Marcel Beaudoin and Moogli

Marcel Beaudoin wrote in
. 1.4:

I was afraid of that.

Actually, of all the things that an go wrong, I'd be happy if it were
just a hard drive. They're cheap, and they're easy to install.
Reloading software is kind of time consuming, but if you've been at
all careful about backing up and keeping track of your unlock codes,
reinstalling it all should be easy. Tedious, but easy.

--
Shelly
http://www.cat-sidh.net (the Mother Ship)
http://esther.cat-sidh.net (Letters to Esther)

"Marcel Beaudoin" wrote in message
. 1.4...
When I start up my computer, the BIOS loads, and windows will start
loading
(or at least the Windows Loading screen shows up) and then I hear a loud
grinding noise. I get a very rapid BSOD, and then it shuts down and starts
up again in the DOS "Your computer did not shut down
properly...bhlahblahblah".

Prior to this happening, did you notice any unusual 'clicking' of your hard
drive?
Also, did you notice any extra long delays when accessing the drive? (like
when booting, or copying files to/from).

Is the sound similar to repeated attempts to access the same information
(generally a rapid click associated with a rapid flash of the hard drive
light with no apparent progress).

If it were me, I'd pull the potentially impacted drive, slap it in another
system and run some hard drive diagnostic programs on it (you can likely
still recover a lot of things off the drive even if there is a problem, you
can generally get some testing programs from the hard drive manufacturer's
website).

Dale

On Oct 31, 2:23*pm, Marcel Beaudoin wrote:
When I start up my computer, the BIOS loads, and windows will start loading
(or at least the Windows Loading screen shows up) and then I hear a loud
grinding noise. I get a very rapid BSOD, and then it shuts down and starts
up again in the DOS "Your computer did not shut down
properly...bhlahblahblah".

I have two harddrives on the computer, with windows on one, and my data on
another harddrive. Will it be as simple as buying a new hardrive,
installing windows and then I am good to go? (followed by updating all of
my drivers)

--
Marcel Beaudoin and Moogli

Open up the cover, boot it up, and listen closely for where the noise
is coming from. I've gotten similar symptoms from a bad CPU fan.
--Glenn Lyford

In article ,
wrote:
Open up the cover, boot it up, and listen closely for where the noise
is coming from. I've gotten similar symptoms from a bad CPU fan.

Me too, and the power supply fan. Dog hair gets into the
vents and the processor heats up and the fan starts
spinning, pulling more dog hair into the vents and on into
the case.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community

Open up the cover, boot it up, and listen closely for where the noise
is coming from. I've gotten similar symptoms from a bad CPU fan.
--Glenn Lyford

If it's a bad CPU fan, the problem should be more intermittent. One time
booting it up, it may get right to the desktop, and run for 20 minutes. Next
time, it may only get as far as starting windows.

Should improve with 'rest', and get worse with 'exercise'.

Dale

In article W7ZOk.5603$fF3.1948@edtnps83,
Dale Atkin wrote:
If it's a bad CPU fan, the problem should be more intermittent. One time
booting it up, it may get right to the desktop, and run for 20 minutes. Next
time, it may only get as far as starting windows.

The correct answer to nearly every technical question is "It
depends," and that's the answer to this one as well. My
first guess would be the disk drive but I certainly wouldn't
rule out either the CPU fan or the power supply fan as the
source of the noise based on the symptoms so far.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

Prouder than ever to be a member of the reality-based community

"Melinda Shore" wrote in message
...
In article W7ZOk.5603$fF3.1948@edtnps83,
Dale Atkin wrote:
If it's a bad CPU fan, the problem should be more intermittent. One time
booting it up, it may get right to the desktop, and run for 20 minutes.
Next
time, it may only get as far as starting windows.

The correct answer to nearly every technical question is "It
depends," and that's the answer to this one as well. My
first guess would be the disk drive but I certainly wouldn't
rule out either the CPU fan or the power supply fan as the
source of the noise based on the symptoms so far.

Not so sure about that. The only time I can think of where a cooling issue
wouldn't manifest itself as I described (getting better after allowing
cooling, and worse if you try to start it again right away) is if the
cooling problem had caused some secondary issues that caused the system to
crap out before the overheating had a chance to manifest itself (if you can
think of another reason, I'm all ears).

I agree though, we don't have enough information to rule out overheating at
the moment, as there has been no description from the OP about what happens
on an immediate reboot (which is why I described the symptoms I would
expect).

First thing I would do though is check out the hard drive. Without hearing
the noise myself, its hard to be sure, and this doesn't sound like other
dead drives I've seen, but it would be the first thing on my list to cross
off. To do this, you could either mount it in another system, or failing
that, try reloading windows on to it. Worst case scenario, you waste a
little bit of time, best case scenario, you save all your data on it, and
save a bunch of time (I'd still run a complete test of the drive, even if
you can get it to boot, just to be sure).

Other than hard drive failure, I'd want to cross off software issues (its
possible that the sound is a red herring... without hearing it, its hard to
know), in which case a new hard drive would fix it, but isn't necessarily
necessary (although hard drives are cheap nowadays).

Fans are something else to cross off (but based on your description, it
doesn't sound right...)

After that, I'd start investigating power supply issues. What else is
plugged in to this power supply? Does it have enough juice to run
everything? How common are power spikes/dips in your area? Poorly
functioning power supplies do all kinds of strange things (I've never seen
this presentation, but its possible).

Let us know how you make out.

Dale