Broken Hard drive?

[kijodascott89]

Alright so i have been recently moving my computer around a lot because of remodeling being done and I've run into a problem. Out of no where when trying to boot my pc up it went to the screen that has all the different boot options because of an improper shut down; safe mode, recent settings that worked, boot windows normally, etc. and i've tried every option, but every time it starts to boot, goes to the xp loading screen, then restarts and it goes in a big circle like that. I've tried reinstalling xp and it doesn't detect the disk when trying to. I was told that maybe in the process of moving the tower I messed up my hard drive and that's why xp isn't booting up. If i find this to be the cause and i need to purchase a new hard drive, i was told that there are certain types of hard drives that have a feature that locks the disk in place when the power is off, so that the disk has no chance to be moved like that, like in laptops for example. What are these called or what is the feature called so that when i buy a new one i can get a hd with that feature?

Thank you.

[glc]

I don't think you need to give up on the hard drive yet. Moving a computer with the power off will not hurt a hard drive, the heads are safely parked.

Got some system specs, please?

[clroberts]

Harddrives do have autoparking features and normally this is not a problem, however, harddrives have been known to mess up from time to time. You might try and Low Level Format the Harddrive. Computer Bios's used to have that utility, but anymore, this is done with specialized software. GLC probably knows some of those utilities off the top of his head.

[kijodascott89]

Pentium 4 2.8ghz
1gig ddr-3200 ram
XP Home Edition
Ati x800 pro Video Card
My hd was the stock one from dell 80gig

[glc]

No, a low level format is not what you want to do.

If you have XP SP2, do this - on the boot options screen, choose "disable restart on error" and it will bluescreen instead of reboot - what does the bluescreen say?

Need better specs than this, please - is this a Dell computer? If so, the model, please. If not, need the motherboard brand and model. Need brand of hard drive. Type of optical drive? Is your XP CD a holographic Microsoft, burned copy of something, or a restore CD such as from Dell?