[RESOLVED] Hdd diagnostics

[stevejr]

I'm cleaning up my previous computer and I'm going to give it to my daughter so she can do basic surfing & e-mail. It's an Asus A7A 133 board with an Athlon 1.4 Thunderbird cpu. But I think that the WDC 80Gig hdd may be bad. I get the "disk boot failure...insert disk & press enter".It's an IDE hdd.

I have d/l'ed the WD diagnostic to a floppy and I'm uncertain how I need to set the hdd up in my current rig ( I have to use my rig to check the hdd...there is not a floppy in the other one yet). My current hdd is a sata hdd...so when I hook up this (hopefully not dead yet) Ide hdd...how do I need to change Bios in regard to the Ide hdd...I know that I need to set Bios to boot to floppy first...not sure about the hdd situation.

Unfortunately, I cannot find the burned back up ( at least I think that I burned a copy??) of 98SE that is on the hdd. I was kinda hoping to avoid not having to buy another o/s but if I cannot get this hdd to clear up then I will just buy something. I really like my XP Pro but for just basic surfing & e-mail stuff, would XP Home be any cheaper...or any other version that is stable and not as expensive as Pro?

[jmtjet]

Does the computer you're working on have a floppy drive? If so, there's no need to move the harddrive over to your computer. Just set the BIOS to boot from floppy first-insert the floppy into the floppy drive and reboot and follow the prompts.

[stevejr]

jmtjet....I found the old floppy drive....good...I'll hook it back up ( I think that it still works..hope so)..it will be a lot easier that way. I hope that I can boot to Bios...

I had to go out and buy another IDE ribbon...couldn't find the old one but I had the floppy ribbon...oh well...

I'll let ya'll know how things go...

[stevejr]

What a surprise... ..I hooked up the hdd...hooked up the floppy drive...had the floppy diagnostic app. ready to go. I turned the computer on...and it proceeded to load right up....great!! . I couldn't believe my eyes...and what was even more surprising was that I must have forgotten that I had Windows XP as the o/s...cool!! I switched my cable ethernet plug-in over to this machine ( I'm using it now...), and I got online as easily as I do with my current system. Wow...what a relief!! Now I don't have to buy another hdd or re-purchase another O/S. Whoopeeeeeee!!!!

I did, however, go ahead and use the hdd diagnostic floppy and the hdd is fine...no apparent problems. I also have the WD Smartwatch utility that came with the hdd and it also shows that all is well.

Now, I think I know...maybe...what caused the boot disk failure in the first place. The old psu was a 300w.psu with the brand name of 'Select'.
As I began to clean things up, I changed out that psu with a 480w unit that I had temporarily used in my current rig while I was waiting for my Enermax 485w to be replaced by Newegg. I got this 480w psu at Radio Shack...the only thing around here...and it has the name..."Black Steel".

So...what do ya'll think...could a psu cause a boot disk failure warning??

Since it had been over a year since this system had been running, i have been updating all of the security stuff and all of the Windows updates since this rig was last running. My eTrust anti-virus was expired so I decided to go with Antivir and so far I like it.

This Athlon 1.4 T-Bird runs a little hotter than my s754 Venice...it's about 53c now...which is cooler than it normally runs because I have replaced the little stock hsf with an Evercool 80mm and since the 80mm hangs over all four sides, it is blowing cool air all around the heat sink. I also had removed the heat sink and cleaned off all of that old...black..dried up junk ( what was that stuff?)..and used some good ceramique stuff that I had left over when I replaced my NB hsf...so the temps should be just fine.

My original cost estimate for getting this thing up and running won't be near as much now....that's nice...!!