URGENT help needed please!!

[courtney4]

Sorry, didnt know which was the best board to post this, but i am really pissed off atm.

I just spent 1550 quid on a new computer. It just arrived about 30 mins ago. I turned it on, everything fine, loaded up windows MCE edition. However, i went to get my other mouse from upstairs, and when i came back it had frozen. I was like wtf, ok...i restarted my PC and now i get this error message

Disk boot failure, insert system disk..blabla. What could of happened? and what can i do?

thx

 

[chuckshissle]

Can you go to your bios and clear it as in use the default. Because right now maybe the computer is booting up through the disk as in CD ROM, so go to the bios screen and simply switch the booth drive to hard disk so the computer will boot up using the hard drive. If not just clear the CMOS or set to default.

 

[luminaris]

means the machine is not detecting the hard drive anymore. Hard drive could have possibly failed. About the only thing you can do is open up the case and make sure a cable didn't come loose or unplugged. Make sure there are no disks in the CD/DVD drives and floppy. I've seen the way shipping companies handle things sometimes and I wouldn't be surprised if something came loose or damaged in the machine during shipping. Happens all the time. Start there and let us know what you find out. BTW - what kind of machine is it and post specs if possible ... Thanks

 

[courtney4]

means the machine is not detecting the hard drive anymore. Hard drive could have possibly failed. About the only thing you can do is open up the case and make sure a cable didn't come loose or unplugged. Make sure there are no disks in the CD/DVD drives and floppy. I've seen the way shipping companies handle things sometimes and I wouldn't be surprised if something came loose or damaged in the machine during shipping. Happens all the time. Start there and let us know what you find out. BTW - what kind of machine is it and post specs if possible ... Thanks

I really dont wanna open up the case because it will void my warranty. Ive checked, nothing in the floppy or CD drives.

i have amd 4400+ x64
2gig ram
2x200gb harddrives
ati x1900xt 512mb
550w psu
asus - sli deluxe.

how could it suddenly work then not? i will have a look in the bios settings after dinner.

thx for help

 

[luminaris]

yeah that is possible however, since it is a high performance machine, I doubt it will void your warranty solely because most high pro manufacturers know your gonna get in there and either tinker with it or upgrade it. Besides, unless it has a reset control on the front of the case, the only way to reset the BIOS is open it. If your gonna do that, check those cables. Something has come loose inside the case or hard drive failure. Hard drives are very sensitive and can get damaged from shipping.

If your the least bit nervous about opening the machine, call the manufacturer and ask them if you can open it or see if they will help you with it.

 

[courtney4]

yeah that is possible however, since it is a high performance machine, I doubt it will void your warranty solely because most high pro manufacturers know your gonna get in there and either tinker with it or upgrade it. Besides, unless it has a reset control on the front of the case, the only way to reset the BIOS is open it. If your gonna do that, check those cables. Something has come loose inside the case or hard drive failure. Hard drives are very sensitive and can get damaged from shipping.

If your the least bit nervous about opening the machine, call the manufacturer and ask them if you can open it or see if they will help you with it.

do u reckon i should just try putting in my windows media centre CD and installing windows again?

I press a button on the front of my PC when it crashed...but there are only 2 buttons to wouldnt it be a reset button ?

 

[courtney4]

ok i went into BIOS and went to BOOT procedure.

it went

removable
harddrive
cd
disabled

I change removable to hard drive, that didnt work. I change it back and now i get some 'read disk failure - press ctr atl del to restart'

 

[courtney4]

ok ,changed BIOS to read from CD drive first. Put in my windows disk to reinstall windows

Said i had to formatt the drive i selected. After it finished it said it could not be installed because the hard drive was either damaged or not connected properly.

So...i guess my main hard drive is fucked. Can anyone tell me what might cause a hard drive to fail?? because when i turned my PC on the first time it did work

 

[luminaris]

You can try to reinstall windows and see if that works. If the drive is bad, its not going to work. Try it and see though. Post back and let us know what happens.

 

[luminaris]

As I said, its not uncommon for hard drives to arrive damaged. I figured that's what it was. Its frustrating as hell. You'll have RMA the machine and/or drive back to have it replaced.

I've been building machines for many years and I can't even begin to tell you some of the horror stories I've received from shipping companies. From simple tears in boxes to parts coming to me in plastic bags with no boxes from the shipping companies. Of course, parts can come from the factory defective too.

That's a shame that happened and hope you can get it resolved quickly.

Edit - in the back of my mind, I still think its a cable unplugged or bad from the hard drive though ... hhhmmmm

 

[courtney4]

As I said, its not uncommon for hard drives to arrive damaged. I figured that's what it was. Its frustrating as hell. You'll have RMA the machine and/or drive back to have it replaced.

I've been building machines for many years and I can't even begin to tell you some of the horror stories I've received from shipping companies. From simple tears in boxes to parts coming to me in plastic bags with no boxes from the shipping companies. Of course, parts can come from the factory defective too.

That's a shame that happened and hope you can get it resolved quickly.

Edit - in the back of my mind, I still think its a cable unplugged or bad from the hard drive though ... hhhmmmm

thx for ur help. Im pretty scared that something else might have been wrong causing the hard drive to fail, i mean it did work intially and all the computers come fully tested.

There is a fan which they have added to the see-thru side of my case, which has never spinned even once. My case was supposed to have neon lights in it...they are not glowing up, my CPU cooler is at a wierd angle and looks like its about to fall off (think it might be normal tho).

Do u reckon i should try install windows on my other hard drive? and any idea why my error message changed from disk boot failure > disk read failure since i changed the boot prorities in BIOS (even tho i changed them back to default).

 

[luminaris]

You can certainly try to install on the other drive and it may work.

IMO though, if that machine arrived at my door with those types of problems, it would certainly be going back.

Does the case have a clear side on it? If it does, try to look at where the SATA cables plug into the board and see if one of them came off the board and look at the back of the drives as well to see if there is a cable hanging loose. I just think a cable inside came loose somewhere. Could even be a PSU cable thats loose since all the fans aren't coming up either.

 

[courtney4]

i think you could be right about the cables, even tho i cant see any obvious mistakes (woudlnt know what to look for really anyway lol)

Reason being is i changed my order at the last minute fmo a geforce 7800 to a radeon x1900xt. I think the 7800 was used in the testing process. The radeon card is Very long and infact the card ends about less than an inch away from the main harddrive, looks very cramped. A cable could have come lose.

OH!! and i have to neon lights in there which i can see but they are not lighting up, yea im pretty sure u are right.

I have sent them an email about it. Thanks!!

 

[luminaris]

I'm really curious to know what happens with that machine. I really don't blame you for opting for the ATI card and yes, it is very long. Doesn't take much to knock something loose in the machine at all with it being cramped.

Keep me posted as to the outcome and good luck

 

[crazywheels]

send it back

 

[courtney4]

Just been on phone to their tech support. He had me try out the different SATA and power cables to the hard drive to see if they were faulty. He told me to reinstall windows, which is what im going to try to do now. It prolly wont work tho, so he said he is going to send me a replacement harddrive and also some replacement neon lights as well.

He told me to put my finger on the harddrive and power it up, it vibrated so it seems to be working but prolly is faulty .

so many dam wires all over the place lol, *cry*

oh well these things happen

 

[courtney4]

ok well, im getting sent a replacement hard drive probably tomorrow. As for now, i switched over the SATA cables making the secondary hard drive the main one. Im formating it atm so i can install windows on that one. (38% but taking ages)

If this works i can say it was the broken hard drive causing the problems. If it doesnt, and i get the same error message, i am actually going to cry myself to sleep tonight.

 

[Anoobis]

OK, I could be wrong, but shouldn't there be some SATA drivers to install while trying install Windows. This process may have changed, but don't you hit F6 or something right at the beginning of an XP install to install 3rd Party SCSI/RAID drivers. If you don't do this, the installation process will not recognize your hard drives. Your system probably came with a floppy disk that has the SATA Controller drivers on it. If not, you could probably identify the controller in the motherboard manual and download them online.

You also need to make sure the BIOS is setup properly if your planning on using a RAID config, which should already be setup since it worked at least once. However, if you clear the CMOS you will probably have to set it up again.

I only mention this because he has two identical drives. The perfect setup for RAID.

This really sounds like a corrupt MBR, which could have been easily fixed in the Windows Recovery Console. It wouldn't have hurt to try. Unfortunately it's too late because the Windows partition is probably damaged to due the failed re-install.

 

[luminaris]

Well, i've got my fingers crossed so lets see what happens. It should work as long as the second drive isn't bad 8O

Good luck with it ...

 

[luminaris]

yep, that's true and hopefully when tech support was called, they made mention of this little procedure as long as they are SATA drives.

 

[courtney4]

installed windows on the second hard drive and its working so far...Now.... i have windows with eff all on it and i dont know what to do. Do i have to install all the drivers?

 

[Anoobis]

[/confused] Sorry...eff??? (British slang?) I must've missed something. Excuse my ignorance.

Don't get too comfortable. You've got another drive on the way. If you plan to just add it as a second drive, then your're fine and you won't have to re-install again.

If you plan to RAID them, then you're going to have to re-install Windows again anyway so there isn't much point in making things feel at home just yet.....

 

[courtney4]

sorry eff just meant the F word

yea im using the new hard drive as the secondary one. I am also not gonna use RAID on any of my drives.

Im really stuck now tho...my PC looks like windows 95. I have installed the sound drivers and i think the video drivers but im getting errors and things are going wrong all over the place. What else should i install (windows MCE 2005)

thx

edit- installing drivers off of my motherboard CD.

 

[Anoobis]

Dude...RMA this thing.

You paid good money for this thing. Too much to be having issues like this. Get on the horn and chew out the Customer Service guys and tell them to give you another machine like you ordered. One that works. Then tell them to send a return ticket for that paperweight sitting on your desk. TRY to do it in that order. Make them send you a new machine instead of just turning yours around and back out the door to you.

You shouldn't have to be going through all this crap for a brand new machine!!!

Make these guys earn that 1550 quid!!!!!

 

[courtney4]

Dude...RMA this thing.

You paid good money for this thing. Too much to be having issues like this. Get on the horn and chew out the Customer Service guys and tell them to give you another machine like you ordered. One that works. Then tell them to send a return ticket for that paperweight sitting on your desk. TRY to do it in that order. Make them send you a new machine instead of just turning yours around and back out the door to you.

You shouldn't have to be going through all this crap for a brand new machine!!!

Make these guys earn that 1550 quid!!!!!

Yea i am tempted to take it back and i defo will if i get any more problems. However, i did buy it from a fairly small custom build company..i guess they should put a little more care into their machines.

Anyway, i put in the windows disks again and it installed more stuff. Windows seems installed fine now, its wierd it connected me to the net, and looks like it installed all the drivers. Can this be right??