Hard Drive Failure?

[Pickle_mole]

Okay so i was going to replace the video card in my brothers computer that is a "
HP Pavilion M8120N(GC674AAR) Core 2 Quad Q6600(2.40GHz) 3GB DDR2 640GB"

we also replaced the power supply (ive done these things many times)

Now when we turned the computer on the fan on the power supply started ticking, so we turned it off, took it out and found out a twist tie got stuck in it. we took it out and put it back and then the comp wouldnt turn on and the fans would only start for a second then stop, so we went back to the power supply unplugged everything and plugged one thing in at a time to see if it would turn on. Come to find out the hard drive, once plugged in would stop the computer from turning on. So i assumed that it was fried (it got wiped the last time i put a card in, f'n HD ) so after some thought we thought we could take an external HD and take off its casing and plug it in and using that as a temp for a while. whel we got it plugged in and the thing turned on! we got to the HP moboard screen and then put in the 64bit vista disk to install it, then it says disk boot failure. Now can i not use the external? or do i have to go into the bios (im a newb in there) and get it to recognise it or do i have to buy a regular HD at the store?
im lost

[Pickle_mole]

any clues? im buying a hard drive in three hours

[Alba gu Brath]

I had this problem before. My internal HD had failed and was causing a ticking noise and was causing the computer to stall. There was nothing I could, the HD had simply failed, so I called Dell and they sent out a replacement.

[PeacefullyDream]

I had this problem before. My internal HD had failed and was causing a ticking noise and was causing the computer to stall. There was nothing I could, the HD had simply failed, so I called Dell and they sent out a replacement.

Nice, same prob here, unfortunately it was a piece of crap. No dell replacing

[Pickle_mole]

i know im concerned that buying a new HD wont fix it.

[Alba gu Brath]

i know im concerned that buying a new HD wont fix it.

It will fix it. It fixed mine straight away. I had to re-install windows though.

[Pickle_mole]

but i plugged in the external drive as if it was internal and i get a disk boot failure when i put in the vista 64bit disk.

[Alba gu Brath]

but i plugged in the external drive as if it was internal and i get a disk boot failure when i put in the vista 64bit disk.

Try contacting the company which manufactured the computer and ask them to send a replacement. they'll give you the exactly what you need. Or, you could just take it to pc world and save yourself the hassle.

[Pickle_mole]

i gues what im getting at is if the thing boots to bios and displays the boot disk error message could that mean something else besides the HD is at fault? if my mobo was fried it wouldnt even get to the bios though, right?

[Alba gu Brath]

i gues what im getting at is if the thing boots to bios and displays the boot disk error message could that mean something else besides the HD is at fault? if my mobo was fried it wouldnt even get to the bios though, right?

I'm no expert on this so I can't be sure. I think your HD may have failed, seeing as you had the exact same thing that happened to me (ticking noise etc). However, as you can't progress to install windows, I think something else might be wrong. The best advice I can give is go to pc world or whatever pc store you live near.

[eddie291]

if my mobo was fried it wouldnt even get to the bios though, right?

Exactly. Technically, you only need a stick of ram, the CPU, and the mobo to run the bios. A HDD isn't necessary.

The problem should be solved if you put in a new HDD. Now, when you get that boot error, does it happen when you put in the Vista disc? A loading bar should pop up on the bottom when your computer first uses the disc, and if the bar isn't showing up, then you're probably booting from something else. Play around with the boot order.

[Freddie]

i gues what im getting at is if the thing boots to bios and displays the boot disk error message could that mean something else besides the HD is at fault? if my mobo was fried it wouldnt even get to the bios though, right?

It's been a while since I last had a complete hard drive failure but the noise you describe does sound like your hard drive has failed.

As for plugging your external drive and using as an internal dirve.................are you reffering to an external hard drive or optical disc drive? I've never heard of anyone trying to install and boot Windows on to a USB hard drive before.

[Pickle_mole]

Freddie come out here now!

[Pickle_mole]

so i need to slaughter a calf on the alter of the computer gods? i will, i swear it....

[Pickle_mole]

well i when i put the disk in no loading bar came up, it went straight to the boot disk error screen. i took it to geek squad who said it could be the northbridge adapter and said i should get new mobo (my bios detects the disc drive but not the hdd) but then i took it to this little shop and the guy said he could install vista and set up the bios so it reads the hdd for 80 dollars (ive used him before) so i let him give it a whirl, i will find out tomorrow if it works, im praying!

[Simetrical]

I'd be inclined to go with eddie. Probably the external hard disk works fine, but it has no OS installed on it, so when the computer tries to boot to it it gives an error. You need to put in the Vista install disk and make sure BIOS is trying to boot from the optical drive, not the hard disk.

[Pickle_mole]

under the boot devices options in the bios it does no recoginse the HDD, i even took the sata out of the DVD drive and plugged it into the HDD and it still would not. The comp store is still working on it, i have a feeling it is that northbridge since shouldnt that sata recognise my HDD?

[eddie291]

Honest question, does the northbridge have anything to do with HDDs? I thought only the CPU, ram, and PCI slots had something to do with it.

[Pickle_mole]

i have no idea lol the geek squad guy was throwing the name around

[Pickle_mole]

external hard drive, once you take the molding off and the usb thing it looks identical to an internal, i think the only caveat is they have a slow rotation speed but other than that i would assume it would be fine, at least i hope