HD Vanished?

[tilly]

Hi Folks!
New to this forum & not yet found any clues to help with my problem so thought I'd ask for some advice!
My brother's computer was working fine then next thing the HD has vanished, I've looked in the BIOS & it's not there only the floppy & CD drive are there. I've tried booting from an old start up disk & trying to reinstall Windows XP but obviously if the HD is not being seen that's not going to work!
Is there anything else I should try before I go out & buy a new drive?
Thanks
Tilly :giddy:

 

[dopefisher]

try disconnecting and reconnecting your drive.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

If after checking the connections you are still having problems,then maybe a new ide cable will fix it.

Also check to see if the jumper on the back of the HDD has worked loose or fallen off.

Regards Howard :wave: :wave:

 

[tilly]

Thanks!
Checked all that out & still no joy so looks like I get a new HD & try that.
One more thing, could it be possible that a virus has done this?

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Does sound like a new HDD may be in order.

As to whether a virus can kill a HDD I`m not to sure. I seem to remember an article that said it could but I can`t find it.

I did however find this that may be of interest.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,,377504,00.asp

Regards Howard :grinthumb

 

[tilly]

New HD did the trick
Thanks for your help! :giddy: