• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Disappearing hard drive?

A

aplefka

Lifer
Not sure what happened, but I get home and turn on my computer, and I got some errors while Norton was loading up. Didn't think much of it, til I went to open IRC and it says the drive or network device the shortcut refers to is missing.

I go to My Computer and sure enough, both partitions of my 160 GB hard drive are gone. Any ideas?
 
Sounds like dust to me. Do you have an intake in the front?
Might as well check for a loose connection, as well as get an air duster ($7) to blow some of that nasty stuff out.

-TPG
 
Check out both of the above suggestions Get in there and clean out your computer, check for loose connections. Over a period of months the natural vibration of the system fans and the HD itself might have made something work itself loose. Also maybe you could try a different power connector and/or another drive cable on the hd.
 
Thanks for the suggestions guys... I don't have an intake on the front but I'm planning on upgrading my cooling setup soon.

While I'm out though, where can I find these air dusters and what do they look like?
 
Originally posted by: aplefka
Thanks for the suggestions guys... I don't have an intake on the front but I'm planning on upgrading my cooling setup soon.

While I'm out though, where can I find these air dusters and what do they look like?
Click to expand...

They're aerosol-type cans with long tubes taped to the side. They're usually sold in the electronics section of most major department stores. Just ask someone at Wal-Mart.


 
Originally posted by: aplefka
Thanks for the suggestions guys... I don't have an intake on the front but I'm planning on upgrading my cooling setup soon.

While I'm out though, where can I find these air dusters and what do they look like?
Click to expand...

Eek! I don't mean to sound condescending and all - but how long has it been since you've dusted out your PC? On my first build - I didn't know about dusting PCs, I never even thought about dust. Over time, my CPU eventually overheated.... 170F.... !!!!!!!!!

I honestly didn't know what to do, but I opened it up and saw dust covering the heatsink/fan of the cpu... I have a side intake - those generally suck in more dust, and this sucked it in *right* into the hs/f 😛. Man I will never make that mistake ever again.

I went out to staples, and bought a "Comptuer cleaning kit" for about $7, it came with an Air Duster (it's just compressed air in a can), "AntiStatic Spray", and 2 lint free wipes. I have no clue what the "AntiStatic Spray" was, but it told me to spray it on the wipes before cleaning electronic equipment.

Since dust odens't come off that easily, and since computer equipment is "fine" - as in, it's hard to reach some 'edges' (especially on the heatsink) - the air duster comes in handy. This stuff basically blows the dust off of that confined area and I cleaned it off with the wipes (sprayed with that antistatic stuff).

Here's my take - periodically, every 3-4 months just give your computer a quick look and dust it off. Be sure you get into areas located near the intakes, and 'important areas' such as your CPU heatsink, RAM, Graphics Card Heatsink and..... your hard drives of course - since they're located right where your intake is.

But then again, you said you had no intakes - that could be a different story entirely 😛. Possibly overheating as well. Give everything a quick look and get back to us.
For all we know, it could simply be a failed hard drive - it happens sometimes.

You can buy Air Dusters (also known as Compressed Air) at CompUSA, Staples, possibly even BestBuy. I just happen to prefer staples's "Computer Cleaning Kit"

-The Pentium Guy
 
i use a vaccuum cleaner does the trick for me, had this pc for about four years now and i havent gotten any hardware errors
 
Originally posted by: The Pentium Guy
Originally posted by: aplefka
Thanks for the suggestions guys... I don't have an intake on the front but I'm planning on upgrading my cooling setup soon.

While I'm out though, where can I find these air dusters and what do they look like?
Click to expand...

Eek! I don't mean to sound condescending and all - but how long has it been since you've dusted out your PC? On my first build - I didn't know about dusting PCs, I never even thought about dust. Over time, my CPU eventually overheated.... 170F.... !!!!!!!!!

I honestly didn't know what to do, but I opened it up and saw dust covering the heatsink/fan of the cpu... I have a side intake - those generally suck in more dust, and this sucked it in *right* into the hs/f 😛. Man I will never make that mistake ever again.

I went out to staples, and bought a "Comptuer cleaning kit" for about $7, it came with an Air Duster (it's just compressed air in a can), "AntiStatic Spray", and 2 lint free wipes. I have no clue what the "AntiStatic Spray" was, but it told me to spray it on the wipes before cleaning electronic equipment.

Since dust odens't come off that easily, and since computer equipment is "fine" - as in, it's hard to reach some 'edges' (especially on the heatsink) - the air duster comes in handy. This stuff basically blows the dust off of that confined area and I cleaned it off with the wipes (sprayed with that antistatic stuff).

Here's my take - periodically, every 3-4 months just give your computer a quick look and dust it off. Be sure you get into areas located near the intakes, and 'important areas' such as your CPU heatsink, RAM, Graphics Card Heatsink and..... your hard drives of course - since they're located right where your intake is.

But then again, you said you had no intakes - that could be a different story entirely 😛. Possibly overheating as well. Give everything a quick look and get back to us.
For all we know, it could simply be a failed hard drive - it happens sometimes.

You can buy Air Dusters (also known as Compressed Air) at CompUSA, Staples, possibly even BestBuy. I just happen to prefer staples's "Computer Cleaning Kit"

-The Pentium Guy
Click to expand...

I thought you guys were referring to hardware when you said air dusters.

I'm not overheating, I peak at about 140F playing games. Case never heats up past 100F. As for dust, it's not an issue, I have those compressed air cans and use them. I'm a pretty big clean freak. I simply meant that the case's layout hadn't been changed in months when I said it hasn't been touched. I regularly maintain it. 🙂

I tried restarting, and made sure that the HDD was in BIOS. It still doesn't show up in my computer. Gonna open up now though as I need my music and games. I thought I was getting my new RAM today so I was just waiting til FedEx delivered it, but they decided not to for whatever reason. 🙁

I'll report back soon. Hard drive failure = very pissed me though... that's 160 gigs of very important stuff.
 
On the other computer right now. I dusted and unconnected/reconnected everything and am gonna let it cool to about room temp before I power back on again. I do have two fans plus the CPU hs and a TT fan. One is set to exhaust (on the top) and one is set to intake (on the side panel). I'm going to be buying 3 more fans though (two for front intake, one for back exhaust) asap now though, and see if that helps things.
 
Not sure if this is remotely the situation but have you tried running partition magic if you have a copy to see if the drive is recognised and that somehow its partitions have been set to hidden? If so setting them to active would make them magically reappear after a reboot.

Also looked at disk management in computer management (under admin tools from control panel) to see if the partitions appear there?

Good luck.
 
Originally posted by: aplefka
Same thing. In BIOS, not in my computer. 🙁
Click to expand...

Last time I had an issue with a drive, it detected in the BIOS, but during POST it said:
"Maxtor <Insert Model Number> drive - Command <Something> Failed"

Sounds like a software issue. Are those drives SATA? Try reinstalling the SATA drivers maybe.

A better idea would be to plug those drives into another computer and see if it works on those.

-TPG

 
Dunno how, dunno why, but it's back online right now. Gonna go out and buy a whole bunch of DVD+Rs and start getting all my data backed up today. Also, since I added the gig of RAM that I got today now I have to reactivate Windows XP, but when I go to reactivate it says my key has been used too many times? This is the only computer the key is on dammit!
 
Lol. There's probably some keygen circuling around that uses your key. If your copy is legit (I'm sure it is), then contact Microsoft and theyll help you.

Yeah, Hardware is weird, it fixes itself. My graphisc card fan stopped spinning once, for no apparent reason for nearly 2 days. I turned it on again and again and again after disassembling the heatsink...etc, nothing happened. But it worked after a while. No clue.

-The Pentium Guy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top