HDD Currupted ? can it be fixed ?

bonanza318

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Aug 8, 2008
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hello

This is a new HDD.
well i was messing with the "OEM" cd for vista and tried to install the OS. But it failed and froze. so i turned it off.
that is where it made me frustrated.

It loads the gateway screen. then i see the " _ " dash blinking.

and then a blank screen.

I am guessing the HDD got corrupted ? It is making this high pitch eeking sound...

This is a GT5692 motherboard.
500 WD HDD
4 ddr2 667
phenom 8450

I have also tried my other mobo Biostar TF720. and it did the same black screen after the bio logo.

The thing is. I have tried to boot from my cd/drive with my xp. but it continues with a " _ " then a black blank.

so... Do i need a working HDD to boot from cd/drive? or is something else broken ?
I did not touch anything after the install of vista froze. i just turned it off, and it is blank...
The Bios does see the cd/drive and the HDD drive.




if what so ever the HDD is broken... I have read that Windows PE will be able to boot into the HDD and format it ... or is there any other ways possible to fix it ?
 

Paperdoc

Polypheme
Ambassador
If this is a new machine with a blank HDD, you do NOT need a ready-to-run HDD to start - that's what Vista does first, the Partition and format jobs. Anything previously written to it, even junk garbage, does not matter if you're starting with a Partiton operation. So you cannot "corrupt" that drive just by writing junk to it.

BUT you do need the blank HDD to be functioning. That does mean your BIOS needs to be set to boot from the CD and ignore the HDD. Now, is this a SATA drive? That would mean a choice, depending on your mobo's BIOS.

Some BIOS's require that your OS load and use a SATA driver to access it. When starting from a blank HDD for a fresh install, there's no HDD to load the BIOS from. So you have to copy the required driver(s) (using another computer) to another device, usually a floppy, put that in the new machine's floppy drive, and watch carefully as Vista starts. There's a place where it prompts you to push a key if you want to load some driver(s) from somewhere (the floppy) at the very beginning so that Vista's installer can access some device (in this case, a SATA drive). And yes, I know you may not have a floppy drive around. If that's your situation, check around here for ways to do this from some non-floppy device, but it seems M$ built Windows installers to assume you would have a floppy.

Even better, check your manual and BIOS. Some BIOS's have a place to set exactly how to deal with the SATA drives. The most common choice is to set up two or more HDD's in a RAID array, which I do NOT recommend unless you need it, or to make your SATA drive behave (to the OS, anyway) just like an IDE drive. It's called IDE emulation, or something like that. Set your BIOS that way and the Vista install disk will be able to handle it just fine. Note that, if you don't make this kind of choice, many BIOS's by default have the SATA drive controllers deactivated, so the install procedure will never find them.
 

bonanza318

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Aug 8, 2008
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well i have found the problem.

The vista have tried to install its os but coudnt not continue

so when i tried to boot from the xp disc. It woud not let me load anything.

then i popped in the gateway OS disc and go into the harddrive part.

i deleted and format it the 460g i have letft....

well i switched back to the biostar thinking it would load to my xp disc.
which it did. it got into the blue screen loading its stuff

but then it did the error thing....

a problem has been dtect and windows has bee nshut down to prevent damage

the Techincal information:
STOP: 0s00000007e blah blah
pci.sys - addres f748e0bf base at blah datestamp blah

any ideas ?
 

bonanza318

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Aug 8, 2008
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edit*

i would have to thank the careless of my mind. this was a fustration of a simple task.
ive prayed all day. and i know it seems a dumb situation after all these frustrations it have giving me.

I found out that the 3 xp disc. were old. no sp1....

ive finnaly got my hands on an sp3 and thank the lord it has installed perfectly on my new first build...

thank you for your time Paperdoc.
I appreciate it much.