I drove 400 miles with my computer in the backseat on top of some blankets. When I got home that night, the computer worked like normal, but the morning after it gave me the Disk Boot Failure error. Considering it worked that night, it probably isn't some loose cord and more likely that my HDD is failing, right? The HDD seems to be running fine though, unless I'm mistaking the fan's vibrations for it lol : (

leetchaos

United States395 Posts

May 23 2010 19:31 GMT

Re-seat the cables anyways.

paper

13196 Posts

May 23 2010 19:36 GMT

Still doesn't work : (

ghermination

United States2851 Posts

May 23 2010 19:38 GMT

On May 24 2010 04:36 paper wrote:
Still doesn't work : (

Well try it with another hard disk? Either static damaged the motherboard (on top of blankets) or vibrations damaged the hard drive. You have to try that to know which one it is.

FragKrag

United States11552 Posts

May 23 2010 19:38 GMT

Yeah your hard drive is failing

Should have taken it out and padded it

tarpman

Canada718 Posts

May 23 2010 19:41 GMT

Put your ear down to the computer while it's running and listen closely. If you hear something that sounds like a regular ticking then your hard disk is almost definitely busted. (Note that not hearing that doesn't necessarily mean it's all right).

I hope you have a recent backup.

SichuanPanda

Canada1542 Posts

May 23 2010 19:42 GMT

On May 24 2010 04:38 FragKrag wrote:
Yeah your hard drive is failing

Should have taken it out and padded it

This time around I have to agree with you Frag, no hard feeling about previous thread I hope. I've seen this happen many times, probably some kind of internal drive damage if cables are secure, as nothing else could have changed. As mentioned above try a different known to be working SATA HDD to make sure nothing else was damaged.

Edit: Almost forgot Low Level Cyclic Redundancy check can verify 100%. Check out Hiren's Boot Disk.

paper

13196 Posts

May 23 2010 19:48 GMT

Well, the BIOS works :S

Anyway, if I do get a new hard drive, what should I get?
And are there any areas I can upgrade? :D
I have a nice budget

List of my hardware:
Q6600 Core 2 Quad Processor 4x3.4GHz (stock 4x2.4GHz)
OCZ Vanquisher CPU Heatsink
4GB(2x2GB) DDR2-800MHz RAM
Gigabyte P35-DS3L Motherboard
Sapphire 4870 512MB DDR5 Video Card
Seagate 500GB SATA II Hard Drive 7,200RPM --- DEADZ? ;(
Lite-ON 18x Dual Layer DVD/CD Burner
Antec EarthWatts 500W Power Supply
Dynex Mid-Tower ATX Case

The hard drive doesn't make any strange noises, and I'll try to find another hard drive to test with... :S

nanaoei

3358 Posts

May 23 2010 19:55 GMT

hahaha you're parting with yuor old hard drive pretty well ^^
lots of people find the caviar black series popular
my friends and IT graduates don't reccomend green hard drives
maybe an SSD with that nice phat budget haha
SSD's though, i'm not sure how prone they are to physical damage,
but they're said have naturally a slightly lower lifespan than mechanical ones, having a maximum read and write lifetime

maybe a new case? ddr3 ram ?
good processor i don't thikn you can upgrade all that much : )
save for a good mobo and and i5/i7 quad core or a newer AMD 6xmodel

SichuanPanda

Canada1542 Posts

May 23 2010 19:57 GMT

#10

On May 24 2010 04:48 paper wrote:
Well, the BIOS works so it's probably not the mobo, yeah?

Anyway, if I do get a new hard drive, what should I get?
And are there any areas I can upgrade? :D
I have a nice budget

+ Show Spoiler +

List of my hardware:
Q6600 Core 2 Quad Processor 4x3.4GHz (stock 4x2.4GHz)
OCZ Vanquisher CPU Heatsink
4GB(2x2GB) DDR2-800MHz RAM
Gigabyte P35-DS3L Motherboard
Sapphire 4870 512MB DDR5 Video Card
Seagate 500GB SATA II Hard Drive 7,200RPM --- DEADZ? ;(
Lite-ON 18x Dual Layer DVD/CD Burner
Antec EarthWatts 500W Power Supply
Dynex Mid-Tower ATX Case

The hard drive doesn't make any strange noises, and I'll try to find another hard drive to test with... :S

Depending on what you're looking to spend you could always upgrade to i7 and more ram, but i7 will require a motherboard upgrade (or any 'i' series processors for that matter). For HDDs I'd recommend sticking with Seagate I've always ran their drives, have one 10 years old that still runs strong. My stance on SSD is to get a small one as your 'install drive' essentially you will install your OS all games etc. on the SSD, and leave it as is, then have all day-to-day computing saved to the secondary drive. This can be achieved with MMC and/or Registry Edits to direct all Windows content and web browsing content to a 'remote' location, AKA your non SSD drive.

My reasoning is that SSD have ~250,000 read/write life span. In other words if you are constantly moving/copy/deleting/making files on an SSD it will significantly decrease the life span of the drive. Normal drives don't suffer this problem but unless you have a 10,000 RPM drive they do not come close to an SSDs speed (of course there is always exceptions with computers like NCQ for example).

Touching on processors again I'd say your current CPU is more than sufficient for pretty much any gaming needs at this time. i9 (6 core) is coming down the pipes from Intel so perhaps waiting until then to do a full-overhaul would be the best time to do so. That's what I'm doing, as my Q6200 is working quite well at the moment.

semantics

10040 Posts

May 23 2010 20:34 GMT

#11

Could easily just be a strach while moving it.

If you have the windows install disk

put that in boot from it

instead of installing a fresh copy of windows go to repair console

type in fixboot

and that should fix your boot partition for your hdd for now atleast

i think windows 7 and vista automates it and you may not have to type fix boot just hit repair.

Also if those 7200 is like a 7200.8 that's like 3 4 years old now depending how much you abused them they could be dieing, esp if left in IDE mode always on and crap.

SichuanPanda

Canada1542 Posts

May 23 2010 21:15 GMT

#12

On May 24 2010 05:34 semantics wrote:
Could easily just be a strach while moving it.

If you have the windows install disk

put that in boot from it

instead of installing a fresh copy of windows go to repair console

type in fixboot

and that should fix your boot partition for your hdd for now atleast

i think windows 7 and vista automates it and you may not have to type fix boot just hit repair.

Also if those 7200 is like a 7200.8 that's like 3 4 years old now depending how much you abused them they could be dieing, esp if left in IDE mode always on and crap.

You're last point is something definitely to take note of, HDDs can and will die of their own accord.

paper

13196 Posts

May 23 2010 21:20 GMT

#13

I don't have a windows install disk :S

Anyway, I've done that 6-hour drive at least five times, so I guess the last one was the straw that broke the hard drive's back : (

so... SSD/HDD combo?! My power supply should be sufficient, yeah? Or I'll just get more ram :<