harddrive issues

[WooT]

alright guys i have been tryin for weeks to fix this but im am stumped.
When i turn my pc off at night and turn it back on in the morning i get a:
"Disk Boot Faluire, Please enter system disk". so i turned it off and unpluged the SATA cable to the HD and Mobo, almost the power cable, and i plug it back in about 10 mins later. and i hit f12 to go to the boot menu and boot my harddrive and it works fine again. anyone know what the problem is? could it be some bad boot sectors?

"Also the power cable"

[Spitfire]

Hard to tell. You only have the one HDD to test the issue with? If i were you and once you get it booted i'd be backing up the HDD incase its on its last legs.

Could always try a low level format of the drive.

[erizoe]

Back it up ASAP, The disk is on it's way out. I'd be weary about using it before baking up, there really isn't much in terms of warning for when a disk is going to stop spinning for you and one it's gone it's gone. Whats wrong with your drive is probably just that.

When you unplug the disk does it reset the disks MBR?, if so that could be why it boots up fine after unplugging/replugging. once windows turns on and tells the MBR there's a problem it won't let you boot.

keep us updated.

[WooT]

well the harddrive is only a year old and i have tested 5 other harddrives on this pc and they all work fine but still this one has the same issue when i shut it off, but it doesnt have a problem restarting. i've already backed it up but i just got a radeon hd 2400 pro graphics card for this pc and i wanna play more oblivion lol, i will keep runnin some harddrive tests to see what i come up with. thanks for all the suggestions

[Spitfire]

Age doesn't always have an effect. I have a 420mb HDD from my first computer. A 66mhz 486 with 8mb ram and it still runs fine. Thats from about 1992 i think.

I've had 320gb+ Seagates that are only a couple of months old fail. ATM i've purchased a couple of Samsung 750gb with 32mb Cache to give them a go. So far so good

[WooT]

ok other then the dying theroy, any other ideas, or way to cheack for problems, a program maybe?, if my harddrive dies could i make a boot image of it and boot it on another hd?

[Spitfire]

Once your HDD is RIP its RIP, unless you spend hundreds of dollars to get a firm to recover the data. If its just the circuit board you can get an identical HDD and swap them, but then you void the warranty on the new drive your borrowing the board off of.

If you have copied the entire contents of your HDD onto another one as a backup, get a new drive and just copy all the files back over. It will boot fine. Otherwise it's a good excuse to install a fresh copy of windows

Have you tried the diagnostic software from the brand of your HDD?

I.e.

SeaTools for Windows
SeaTools for Windows has replaced SeaTools Online and PowerMax. SeaTools for Windows is a comprehensive, easy-to-use diagnostic tool that helps you quickly determine the condition of the disc drive in your external hard drive, desktop or notebook computer. It includes several tests that will examine the physical media on your Seagate or Maxtor disc drive and any other non-Seagate disc drive.

SeaTools for Windows tests USB, 1394, ATA (PATA/IDE), SATA and SCSI drives. It installs onto your system. SeaTools for Windows is completely data safe.

Note: OneTouch and FreeAgent drive users should use the diagnostic feature built into the OneTouch Manager or FreeAgent software.
(FreeAgent Desktop - use Seatools for Windows.)

Can get that here

[WooT]

ight, cool i backed it up, and its all good i upgraded some stuff: added 1 gig of ram, Ati Redeon 2400 hd pro, and im up to 400 gigs of hd space. WooT