HDD not recognized, DVDRW messed up too! need knowlageable help.

[ThManDan22]

It wont recognize the harddrive in the BIOS. The HD makes a clicking noise also. It also can no longer boot from CD because the CD/dvd-rw is shown as a bunch of weird charactors and symbols. It is like the whole computer is in a downward spiral. I would like to now where the problem exists. Is it how the HD and DVDRW are configured. A virus? is it something on the mobo messing up my HD and DVD drive. Kinda weird how the problem now is starting on the dvdrw drive. Is this the kind of stuff that occurs because of a boot sector virus? Any help appreciated, Im totally lost.

 

[stevty2889]

Well if the hard drive is making clicking sounds, thats a good sign that the hard drive is about to die, if not dead already. If it's not being recognized in the bios, its a hardware problem, not software related, so even a boot sector virus couldn't cause that. Did you make any recent changes to the system at all? Did you verify the jumpers were correct for both the hard drive and the DVD drive? Are they both IDE, on the same channel or seperate? Have you tried disconnecting the hard drive, and then try booting from the CD?

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

did you just build this computer? It sounds like you don't have the master / slave jumpers set right on there. I had that happen a few times when I was building / upgrading other peoples' machines.
Tas.

 

[ThManDan22]

I havent made any recent changes to the hardware. The HD kept on "losing" stuff. It would make my windows partition "unrecognized, and my linux partition also got messed up" So I have been re-installing and formatting also. Untill yesterday morning I could boot from cd and run a LIVE linux session. Now it shows the DVD drive as a jumbled bunch of weird charactors. They are both IDE. The HD is set as Master and the DVDRW as Slave. Thanks for your reply.
Dan Rippon

 

[ThManDan22]

Originally posted by: tasburrfoot78362
did you just build this computer? It sounds like you don't have the master / slave jumpers set right on there. I had that happen a few times when I was building / upgrading other peoples' machines.
Tas.

No, This computer has been running flawlessly since Dec 04' ,fairly new.

 

[ThManDan22]

Im guessing the HD is trash

 

[ThManDan22]

Yup, Figured it out. Took the HD out and left the dvdrw as slave and I can now boot my ubuntu live cd (TG for Live CD's)! must have been a dead HD. Kudos to stevty2889.