Hard Drive Issue?

[phrequency]

Alright so my Mom's computer is having a HD issue (I think). My dad said that there was an error saying something was corrupted. Next whenever they'd start up the computer they would get an error saying "Reboot and Select proper boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected boot device and press a key."

~ I tried changing the boot priority in the BIOS but that didn't help.
~ When I looked in the BIOS after trying to change SATA/power cables, the hard drive was labeled as "7 7 7 7 7 7 7" and then "J1J1J1J1J1J1"
~ When I tried booting from CD with the Windows XP disc it loaded the setup files then said "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer"
~ I tried both the old hard drive that was in the computer when this originally happened and also a brand new hard drive that we bought from Newegg.

The specs of the computer that I do know are:

Windows XP
2GB RAM
HITACHI HD

sorry I don't know more

Please help!

 

[Deleted member 217926]

You can try a different SATA port. Other than that it looks to me like the hard drive failed.

Edit: OK I actually read the whole post. You tried a new hard drive and it's not detecting either? If a different SATA port does not work then the SATA controller on the motherboard is probably dead.

 

[phrequency]

Now the BIOS is 'detecting' the drive, it says "SATA 1: HITACHI blablabla" but still when I enter windows setup, it says "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer"

 

[phrequency]

Update: When I start the computer up, sometimes it says "SATA 4: HITACHI HDT... S.M.A.R.T. Command Failed"

Ugh..

 

[Deleted member 217926]

This just started happening out of the blue? No other changes were recently made to the computer?

Do you have another computer you can test the drive in? If the old drive and the new drive are having the same issues being recognized I would say the motherboard is probably bad.

Test the drives in a different computer if you can though.

 

[phrequency]

Yeah it just happened out of the blue. My dad said there was one error saying something was corrupt, but he can't remember.

I'm pretty sure its the motherboard too. The other drive is brand new and it's doing the same thing. I highly doubt it was DOA

 

[Deleted member 217926]

I have got a DOA hard drive before but the odds of both being bad are tiny. Still if you have another computer you can plug the drive into you can rule that out before replacing the motherboard.

 

[phrequency]

I'll try and put the new drive into my computer to see if that's it. I've got a spare intel board too I can try if that doesn't work.

Thanks for the help, I'll try that stuff tomorrow and get back to you.

 

[phrequency]

But in the BIOS it detects the SATA, does that matter? Or can the motherboard still be dead?