PC Rebuild Problems

[breamachine]

Hello,

I've just joinned and have had a browse through some of the posts and haven't found what I was looking for, I apologise if I'm posting this in the wrong area to!

Right, my computer, started randomly rebooting itself and coming up with what others have described as 'the blue screen of death", then it just wouldn't bootup, a friend suggested replacing the hard drive, of which he supplied me with a spare

It appears to have a different connection type, the same as the back of the dvd/rw. I therefore inserted this into the hard drive and moved the power supply??? across. For some reason now the computer will boot up on the old hard drive. In my computer it comes up with the existing hard drive, but not the new one, but if i go into device manager and scan for new hardware it detects it but then its not visable in 'my computer'. The thing is, if i disconnect the existing hard drive, the computer won't detect the new one on boot up.

Can anyone help, or am i just being stupid?

Cheers Rich

 

[k.jacko]

eh?
Ok, first of all, welcome
Right, lets get this straight:
Are you saying the new hdd is a SATA drive (as is the dvd-rw), connecting by a small thin, flat cable with a slightly 'L' shaped connector?
Or are you saying Its IDE (as is the dvd-rw) connecting by a wide flat ribbon cable with a 40-pin connector on each each?
I assume that when you say you 'moved the power supply' you mean you just took the 4-pin power molex out of the dvd-rw and put it into the new hdd?
Ok, if its boots up then it sounds to me like you are running IDE drives and it doesn't have a driver loaded for the newer SATA drive. It knows its there, but cannot mount it due to lack of driver support.
Tell me, was the original hdd and the dvd-rw using connected by the same cable?
If you connect IDE and SATA drives, from memory i'm sure it uses the SATA as master, but if it has no operating system on it, then it uses the next available which is the IDE.
It could be a controller issue. Try disconnecting the new hdd AND the dvd-rw and see if it boots up ok. If it does, re-connect the dvd-rw and reboot, see what happens. If it goes back to BSOD then maybe the dvd-rw OR the cable is faulty. OR if the dvd-rw is on the 2nd IDE controller it could be that.

Please supply as much info as possible, for other to be able to help out.
I'm off to Florida to see Mickey and the gang in the .a.m so won't be around for 2 weeks.
Good luck in fixing this mate.

 

[breamachine]

eh?
Ok, first of all, welcome
Right, lets get this straight:
Are you saying the new hdd is a SATA drive (as is the dvd-rw), connecting by a small thin, flat cable with a slightly 'L' shaped connector?

Answer: Nope its a Seagate Barracuda 7200.9.

Or are you saying Its IDE (as is the dvd-rw) connecting by a wide flat ribbon cable with a 40-pin connector on each each?

Answer: Yeah the new one is connected like that.

I assume that when you say you 'moved the power supply' you mean you just took the 4-pin power molex out of the dvd-rw and put it into the new hdd?

Answer: Yeah

Ok, if its boots up then it sounds to me like you are running IDE drives and it doesn't have a driver loaded for the newer SATA drive. It knows its there, but cannot mount it due to lack of driver support.

Tell me, was the original hdd and the dvd-rw using connected by the same cable?

Answer: No. the orginal hdd is connected via a red wire that is plugged into the motherboard (there are three other slots), the ends are almost L shapped.


If you connect IDE and SATA drives, from memory i'm sure it uses the SATA as master, but if it has no operating system on it, then it uses the next available which is the IDE.
It could be a controller issue. Try disconnecting the new hdd AND the dvd-rw and see if it boots up ok. If it does, re-connect the dvd-rw and reboot, see what happens. If it goes back to BSOD then maybe the dvd-rw OR the cable is faulty. OR if the dvd-rw is on the 2nd IDE controller it could be that.

Please supply as much info as possible, for other to be able to help out.
I'm off to Florida to see Mickey and the gang in the .a.m so won't be around for 2 weeks.
Good luck in fixing this mate.

See Answers :s

 

[k.jacko]

SATA (serial ATA, 'L' shaped connector) is the newer faster standards thats replacing IDE (the flat 40-pin ribbon cable). Its not a make of hdd its a standard of hdd. You can get SATA dvd drives as well now.
Ok, It sounds like the original is a SATA hdd, and the dvd-rw is IDE.
BSOD's are notorious for being random. You say its booting ok now? It must be if you can see your new drive in device manager.

To be honest mate, i'd forget your drives and look towards either your:
memory
cpu temps
psu voltages

Next time it reboots itself, boot straight into the bios, by pressing 'delete' or F2 or whatever it says to press to get you into the CMOS setup.
Check the 'Hardware Monitor' or 'PC Health' tabs if you have them and check the system and cpu temperatures.
Let us know what they are.
Also, does it tend to reboot in the middle of anything specific? ie. gaming, MS Word etc....