boot disk failure

[newme]

my sister bumped her computer and now when she starts it up it gets to verifying pool data and then says boot disk faiure insert disk and press enter.i do this and it just has a blinking curser .tommorrow im going to open it up and make sure nothing came loose does anyone have any other suggestions
thanks

[Cricket]

Hi newme,

Cables probably came loose. Make sure everything is tight or inserted properly.

:) Cricket

[ktkendall]

There is a good chance the HD is now bad. If the HD was reading/writing at the time of the 'bump', then it could have damaged the RW head, or the little arm in there. The gap between the head and the platter is measured in microns, and can be damaged that way. Hate to say it but this is the more likely scenario as opposed to ide cable coming loose from bumping the PC. I hope you do get lucky though and find it easily fixxable, like something came loose!

[newme]

okay thanks, ill let you know what happens

[Nuclear Krusader]

My PC was rebooting when trying to detect the HD. It only happened the first time after turning it on. After the reboot it found it and started and ran fine.

I pushed the cables all the way to the bottom and the prob went away.

[newme]

if i find out there is nothing loose, how can i test the hard drive to see if it has failed?
thanks

[Cricket]

Hi newme,

Get the hard drive diagnostic utilities from the manufacturer's website to test the hard drive with.

:) Cricket

[newme]

hello
ive downloaded the utility and i tried to put it on a floppy but the files to big can i not put it on two floppies.it wont allow me to. i dont have a cd burner so thats not an option.

[newme]

i found if i compress the file i can get it onto a floppy,but it wont work in this situation will it?when i cant get into windows?

[ZANEY123]

open uo the file and it will ask you to insert a floppy ..or is that what you did,,

if you just dragged a dropped the file on floppy it wont work,,double click the file and it will tell you when to insert a floppy,,,

Zaney123

[newme]

i downloaded to my desktop and right clicked on the icon send to 3.5 inch floppy and it says not enough disk space

[ZANEY123]

i dont hink you understood what i said or maybe i misunderstood your answer.

double-click (left button) like you are opening the file(or program) and it will give you instructions from there

Zaney123

[newme]

thanks zaney i got it now

[ZANEY123]

I had to do a diag also on a HD and it took me about a half/hour to figure that one out...kept getting the same thing as you did...


Zaney123:D

[newme]

i dont have any instructions for it, is it pretty straight forward to use

[ZANEY123]

yes what type of HD is it on maxtor's site you have to look around but the instructions are on there,

What type of HD is it..

Zaney123

[newme]

its a maxtor with the model number52049u4 it said diamond max on the website

[ZANEY123]

here are the instructions

http://www.maxtor.com/en/documentation/manuals/powermax_guide_en.pdf

this is the diag file which you should have

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

HTH

Zaney123:)

[newme]

okay thanks zaney ill get to it tommorrow let you know what happened

[ZANEY123]

not a prob it is a TEAM effort. Dont forget to let us know.

Zaney123:D

[newme]

brought a floppy over and turned the computer on it didnt recognize anything on the primary master so looked inside and the ide cable was loose on the board, pushed it all the way in and it fired up, lucky for her.
thanks again for everyones help

[ZANEY123]

loose cables will get you everytime!!

Zaney123

[ktkendall]

Glad to hear it wasn't a major problem, You can usually hear the sound of a hard drive gone bad, I call it the chink,chink, chink sound of death to the HD!