Topic: Hard drive failure?

[tweatherman]

My computer will not boot up into windows. It goes as far as displaying the operating system then just sits there with a blank screen and will not boot up into operating system. I tried to reinstall windowsxp and said it couldn't locate my hard drive. I have a ibm ultra 320 15,000rpm scsi hard drive and I don't think xp has the drivers for the adaptec scsi controller for it. Any thoughts of what steps I should take next.

Thanks,
Tim

[DanS]

Can you interrupt the boot sequence early to get into your BIOS settings? Something like F2, ESC, etc. on some machines and usually can see what it is while it's coming up. Once in the BIOS you can verify the hard drive's settings to see if they are recognized and correct.

[4wd]

My main desktop did something similar once, and I just pulled out the RAM memory modules and reseated them.
Worth a try if you are happy messing inside there. Presumably it was a bad contact.
If you have several blocks take one out at a time and try it in case one has gone bad altogether.

[sam2004gp]

My computer will not boot up into windows. It goes as far as displaying the operating system then just sits there with a blank screen and will not boot up into operating system. I tried to reinstall windowsxp and said it couldn't locate my hard drive. I have a ibm ultra 320 15,000rpm scsi hard drive and I don't think xp has the drivers for the adaptec scsi controller for it. Any thoughts of what steps I should take next.

Thanks,
Tim

You will have to download those drivers from Adaptec's website and burn to a cd first.  As you attempt to install Win XP, there will be a point that will be displayed on the screen that will tell you when you can press F6 to install third party drivers.

Here is what the screen looks like.  



Once you get the drivers in for your scsi adapter and drive, then your re-install will proceed normally unless your card or hard drive has gone bad.

[tweatherman]

I went to adaptec website and it said to create a floppy. None of the newer computers have floppy drives anymore. Here is what it said on the adaptec site. This file is self extracting and will unzip to the directory \adaptec\u320. In order to create a driver disk, please extract the files to a floppy by typing a:\ into the "unzip to folder" box within Winzip. I tried pulling a memory stick out and read ok then I put it back in and it read ok with the beeps for each stick of memory.

Thanks,
Tim

[ocala]

My computer will not boot up into windows. It goes as far as displaying the operating system then just sits there with a blank screen and will not boot up into operating system. I tried to reinstall windowsxp and said it couldn't locate my hard drive. I have a ibm ultra 320 15,000rpm scsi hard drive and I don't think xp has the drivers for the adaptec scsi controller for it. Any thoughts of what steps I should take next.

Thanks,
Tim

Strange.
My daughters computer is doing something similar. Hers will get to Windows for about a minute then go to a blank screen.

[C5250]

I went to adaptec website and it said to create a floppy. None of the newer computers have floppy drives anymore. Here is what it said on the adaptec site. This file is self extracting and will unzip to the directory \adaptec\u320. In order to create a driver disk, please extract the files to a floppy by typing a:\ into the "unzip to folder" box within Winzip.

If you don't have a floppy, you can slipstream the drivers, adding them to the install CD.

But if you can still burn a CD, download something like BartPE (a bootable WinPE CD) and boot that. That'll be much quicker than reinstalling windows just to see if the drive is still alive.

[sam2004gp]

My computer will not boot up into windows. It goes as far as displaying the operating system then just sits there with a blank screen and will not boot up into operating system. I tried to reinstall windowsxp and said it couldn't locate my hard drive. I have a ibm ultra 320 15,000rpm scsi hard drive and I don't think xp has the drivers for the adaptec scsi controller for it. Any thoughts of what steps I should take next.

Thanks,
Tim

Strange.
My daughters computer is doing something similar. Hers will get to Windows for about a minute then go to a blank screen.

Just had a thought.  She does not have a USB device like a flash drive plugged in does she?  Sometimes mine freezes when I have a USB Flash Drive inserted during the bootup process.

[Bushman]

Get a new HD and install Windows from it and then slave the SCSI drive.

[ocala]

My computer will not boot up into windows. It goes as far as displaying the operating system then just sits there with a blank screen and will not boot up into operating system. I tried to reinstall windowsxp and said it couldn't locate my hard drive. I have a ibm ultra 320 15,000rpm scsi hard drive and I don't think xp has the drivers for the adaptec scsi controller for it. Any thoughts of what steps I should take next.

Thanks,
Tim

Strange.
My daughters computer is doing something similar. Hers will get to Windows for about a minute then go to a blank screen.

Just had a thought.  She does not have a USB device like a flash drive plugged in does she?  Sometimes mine freezes when I have a USB Flash Drive inserted during the bootup process.

No, just a USB adapter to pick up the signal from the router.

[AWL]

Have you gone into the BIOS and checked the boot order?

[DaculaWeather]

Take the hard drive out and put it in the freezer for 20-30 minutes. Plug it back in and you might be able to get to it for a little while. But time to replace the drive.