[OT] - Ping techy folks - Is my HD dead??

Update time

I spent some of the weekend, poking around inside my computer.

I took the sides off, and started it up, trying to figure out which of my
HDs the noise is coming from. Turns out it is not coming from my HDs, the
clicking/grinding is coming from one of my DVD players. When I put my hand
on it, I can feel it vibrating.

I'd unplug the DVD and confirm this is where the noise is coming from (first
remove any disc that is in there).


However, that still doesn't change the fact that my computer won't start
up. I tried putting my Windows Installation disk in the drive and set the
drive to be the start-up device, and there was no happiness. No real
difference in what happened.

Did you not get a "Press any key to boot from CD..."? Message? If not, I'd
suggest that perhaps your DVD drive is having 'issues' or its not correctly
set in the BIOS to boot from the DVD (or possibly your original disc is
toast).

Come to think of it, if there is something really freaky going on with your
DVD drive, it could cause a BSOD on boot.

Dale

Loose or missing screw?

However, that still doesn't change the fact that my computer won't start
up. I tried putting my Windows Installation disk in the drive and set the
drive to be the start-up device, and there was no happiness. No real
difference in what happened.

This is a long shot, but have you made sure your RAM A) is seated properly
and B) hasn't died? It can come loose/die, and when it does, you'll only
get as far as your BIOS on booting up.

I'd say possible, but not likely in this situation. Bad RAM in my experience
will manifest itself as random crashes during running. While this is crash,
its happening during bootup, and its happening consistently at the same
place.
Typically a RAM problem would be more random.

Dale

"Dale Atkin" wrote in message
news:WGIPk.45$A73.22@edtnps82...

Typically a RAM problem would be more random.

If the RAM is unseated or the whole stick has gone bad (assuming he only
has one stick of RAM), then the system would consistently fail to boot
up at the same point every single time.

If only part of the RAM has croaked, then yes, you'd (probably) have
weird, intermittant problems. I'm dealing with this issue on my own
computer right now.

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

In article WGIPk.45$A73.22@edtnps82, Dale Atkin wrote:
I'd say possible, but not likely in this situation. Bad RAM in my experience
will manifest itself as random crashes during running. While this is crash,
its happening during bootup, and its happening consistently at the same
place.
Typically a RAM problem would be more random.

Hey, Dale: IT DEPENDS. Boot code loads at specific
addresses and operating systems typically do, as well. If
there's bad memory where the system or boot code loads, then
there will be consistent, replicable problems.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

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

in rec.pets.dogs.behavior, "Dale Atkin" wrote in
news:OzIPk.44$A73.38@edtnps82:

Update time

I spent some of the weekend, poking around inside my computer.

I took the sides off, and started it up, trying to figure out which
of my HDs the noise is coming from. Turns out it is not coming from
my HDs, the clicking/grinding is coming from one of my DVD players.
When I put my hand on it, I can feel it vibrating.

I'd unplug the DVD and confirm this is where the noise is coming from
(first remove any disc that is in there).

While I didn't unplug it over the weekend, I could diminish the vibrations
by putting my finger on the case of the DVD drive.

However, that still doesn't change the fact that my computer won't
start up. I tried putting my Windows Installation disk in the drive
and set the drive to be the start-up device, and there was no
happiness. No real difference in what happened.

Did you not get a "Press any key to boot from CD..."? Message?

Nope, but the drive I put the CD in is not the same one that was making
noise. Sorry for not making that clearer

If not,
I'd suggest that perhaps your DVD drive is having 'issues' or its not
correctly set in the BIOS to boot from the DVD (or possibly your
original disc is toast).

I will check to make sure that the BIOS is set to the right drive. I am
pretty sure it was, but will check, to make completely sure.

--
Marcel Beaudoin and Moogli

"Shelly" wrote in message
...
"Dale Atkin" wrote in message
news:WGIPk.45$A73.22@edtnps82...

Typically a RAM problem would be more random.

If the RAM is unseated or the whole stick has gone bad (assuming he only
has one stick of RAM), then the system would consistently fail to boot up
at the same point every single time.

If the only stick of RAM is unseated, typically you'd have a more
catastrophic failure (most modern motherboards, if you pull the RAM, you'll
find that you won't get any life at all on the computer). You *certainly*
won't start to boot windows with no RAM.

Dale

In article wMKPk.64$A73.3@edtnps82, Dale Atkin wrote:
If the only stick of RAM is unseated, typically you'd have a more
catastrophic failure (most modern motherboards, if you pull the RAM, you'll
find that you won't get any life at all on the computer). You *certainly*
won't start to boot windows with no RAM.

You might, actually. It depends (NOT THAT AGAIN!) on how
the bootstrap loader uses the cache on the motherboard.
It's been a long time since I've worked on boot code for
i386-type hardware but even back pre-Pentium there's a heck
of a lot more going on there than you'd think.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

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

Hey, Dale: IT DEPENDS. Boot code loads at specific
addresses and operating systems typically do, as well. If
there's bad memory where the system or boot code loads, then
there will be consistent, replicable problems.

Except that bad RAM isn't typicaly bad all the time. Lets put it this way.

Lets assume that you have one bit (litterally one bit) of bad memory, that
gives perfectly random results. 50% of the time, the result will be correct,
the other half the time, it will be incorrect. So, even if the RAM is
completely stochastic, you won't have failure at exactly the same point all
the time.

Next, even if the result is 'wrong' it doesn't translate to complete
failure, the bad result will get passed somewhere else, which may, or may
not lead to failure. This translates to failure at random points.

In reality, 'bad' RAM isn't generally bad in a stochastic fashion. In
reality, it will likely be right far more than 50% of the time (I've often
found bad RAM to be heat sensitive). This means that the results will tend
to be random.

OK, I'll admit, that if you have a large continuous block of bad RAM that is
'bad', that gets accessed at a specific time in start up, its likely to
cause specific failure points. That being said, this isn't how RAM typically
goes bad (In my experience).

Dale

In article mUKPk.66$A73.38@edtnps82, Dale Atkin wrote:
Lets assume that you have one bit (litterally one bit) of bad memory, that
gives perfectly random results. 50% of the time, the result will be correct,
the other half the time, it will be incorrect. So, even if the RAM is
completely stochastic, you won't have failure at exactly the same point all
the time.

Jesus, Dale - I'm glad you'll be practicing veterinary
medicine far, far, far from me and my dogs.

The boot code is the same EVERY TIME. It loads at the same
address EVERY TIME. Same with portions of the operating
system. I'm glad that your mommy taught you the word
"stochastic." Ask her to teach you when and how to apply it
correctly.
--
Melinda Shore - Software longa, hardware brevis -

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

Update time

I spent some of the weekend, poking around inside my computer.

I took the sides off, and started it up, trying to figure out which
of my HDs the noise is coming from. Turns out it is not coming from
my HDs, the clicking/grinding is coming from one of my DVD players.
When I put my hand on it, I can feel it vibrating.

I'd unplug the DVD and confirm this is where the noise is coming from
(first remove any disc that is in there).

While I didn't unplug it over the weekend, I could diminish the vibrations
by putting my finger on the case of the DVD drive.

If I were you, I'd unplug everything not required to boot the computer.
Right now, with what you've told me, I'm leaning towards some kind of
hardware failure screwing up the software side of things (Ok, its still
possible you have a bad hard drive, but I'm leaning away from that at the
moment).


However, that still doesn't change the fact that my computer won't
start up. I tried putting my Windows Installation disk in the drive
and set the drive to be the start-up device, and there was no
happiness. No real difference in what happened.

Did you not get a "Press any key to boot from CD..."? Message?

Nope, but the drive I put the CD in is not the same one that was making
noise. Sorry for not making that clearer

Ok, this kind of narrows things down a bit. This is a really basic problem
(assuming that the CD is in fact bootable... confirm this with another
system if you have the ability). If you are set to boot from the CD, and the
CD is bootable, then you have a bad CD/DVD drive (or a really freaky
motherboad, but that's not likely). I would sort this out before you go any
further. It may not seem relevant, but you aren't even going to be able to
get Windows loaded if you get a new hard drive if you can't get it to boot
from a CD, and you may find if you fix this problem, the others will go away
(fastest way to 'fix' this is to unplug all peripheral devices. This will
tell you if the device is the problem).

Dale