Computer dies as soon as hard drive spins up ? :-(

[Donegal_Paul]

Hi all, Im new here so be gentle :-)

Im posting from the laptop thankfully but i have a desktop in the upstairs room that has a 160 gig harddrive so i tend to use that more than this.

However, I usually leave it switched on all day every day, but im on a thrift spend at the moment and thought i should really power down the computer overnight, so last night switched it off.

Of course this morning, i go to switch it on, hear it spin up and then it stops dead, monitor doesnt come on or anything, just the little green light on the front keeps flashing. I cant reset or anything and i have to switch it off and on at the mains.

Tried removing the drive, switch on the power and i get a message on the screen saying that no hard drives detected, so i dont know whats going on , i plug in the hard drive again, it spins for about 2 to 3 seconds and the computer dies again :-(

So, am i looking at a new disk? :-(

[Catweazle]

Reset CMOS and try to boot it up again.

[Donegal_Paul]

Reset CMOS and try to boot it up again.

How? when i start the computer with the drive connected it doesnt even get far enough to see anything on the screen :-(

Do you mean do it with the drive disconnected?

[Catweazle]

I mean by shorting the appropriate motherboard jumper or by removing and then replacing the CMOS battery. (With the power cord disconnected of course).

[Donegal_Paul]

I mean by shorting the appropriate motherboard jumper or by removing and then replacing the CMOS battery. (With the power cord disconnected of course).

Nope, no joy, done all that, then as soon as the hard drives power is connected the computer dies :-(

Im convinced the drives knackered:-(

[Catweazle]

Have you tried using a different drive?

[Donegal_Paul]

I am a bit of a numpty with computers so Im not sure if you mean a different HDD? I have an old one that failed on my some months ago, i put that in instead and it spins up, goes through the process until it reads the drive as corrupt, but it doesnt turn off the computer at all.

Though, ive just tried booting up using the cd rom with the windows disk in it and it powered up, of course thats without the HDD, so i plugged that in and guess what, its spinning and working again!! I dont know what the hecks going on here :-(

Remains to be seen though if it'll function properly :-/

[Catweazle]

Definitely sounds like the hard drive then :(

I'd suggest that, rather than simply fit a new hard drive, you get a technician to check the power supply unit and the various power leads and power connectors on it. You may have a problem there which is causing the drives to fail.