Updated Bios - Restart Computer?

[Tom_1569]

On any HDD that has had a operating system setup on it the drive will have an active partition set especially if more than 1 logical drive has been setup ie C and D drives besides the cdroms etc. If you remove it and fit it into another box then you will have to set up C: as inactive with Fdisk or SuperFdisk even if it has been setup as a slave drive or else it will conflict with the operating system on the original HDD and fail to boot.

WRONG...... If he puts the HD in another computer it will work as a secondary aslong as it is not set to master.

 

[Commydoor]

p.s. removing just the battery to reset the bios doesnt necessarily work alone. There should be a jumper that needs to be reset at the same time eg jumper 5 pins 1-2 set as pins 2-3 for 10secs then back to pins 1-2 then refit battery. Check your motherboard manual for the correct jumper.

 

[Commydoor]

not if both operating systems are on active partitions regardless of master or slave settings.....will only work if his 160g HDD doesnt have an operating system

 

[Commydoor]

also Evolution_Ends_Here your 160g HDD isnt necessarily dead. if theres no irrepairable damage to the HDD you may be able to zero the drive. you will lose all data but the drive is returned back to its original state. then its just a matter of partitioning and formatting and resetting up the operating system. vista will have minimum system requirements and might be why it failed to instal.

 

[Tom_1569]

p.s. removing just the battery to reset the bios doesnt necessarily work alone. There should be a jumper that needs to be reset at the same time eg jumper 5 pins 1-2 set as pins 2-3 for 10secs then back to pins 1-2 then refit battery. Check your motherboard manual for the correct jumper.

Ok lets start by clearing some things up...... You havent had to short jumper pins to reset the bios since early P3's, well atleast that I have seen. Some P3's and P4's still have the jumper, as an alternative to removing the battery, you shouldnt need to do both.

not if both operating systems are on active partitions regardless of master or slave settings.....will only work if his 160g HDD doesnt have an operating system

No it will ONLY boot the OS on the MASTER, IF for some reason their was no OS on the MASTER it would go to slave, and then work its way down to secondarys. It will NEVER try and BOOT TWO OS's on DIFFERENT hdd's.

also Evolution_Ends_Here your 160g HDD isnt necessarily dead. if theres no irrepairable damage to the HDD you may be able to zero the drive. you will lose all data but the drive is returned back to its original state. then its just a matter of partitioning and formatting and resetting up the operating system. vista will have minimum system requirements and might be why it failed to instal.

It will depend on how the drive failed. The method you have described is great if some sectors have failed especially some early on sectors which can prevent booting. BUT if its just some sectors fail he should be able to run it as a slave or use a USB connector and get his data off it. I believe the problem is much more serious then just a couple of sectors.

 

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

If you have a master on the PC, this will usually be C, then a removable media drive like a CD rom or DVD drive, this will be D, then if you have other drives, they will be labelled down the line, E, F etc, whatever you fit, the OS that is loaded onto the master will automatically label it with the next letter regardless of what it has loaded on it.

Another thing to try is just boot it from the OS CD in the original machine and choose repair as an option.

 

[Evolution_Ends_Here]

thanks guys for all your help , i tried getting my 160gb working but it completely died anyway 2 day i just bought a usb cabke for my 80gb hard drive, since i had the fun of it not working on my Mums computer i tried so much to get it working but it didn't work , so i got this baby usb cable thingy , hooks up sata, ide so i'm happy.

 

[Tom_1569]

thanks guys for all your help , i tried getting my 160gb working but it completely died anyway 2 day i just bought a usb cabke for my 80gb hard drive, since i had the fun of it not working on my Mums computer i tried so much to get it working but it didn't work , so i got this baby usb cable thingy , hooks up sata, ide so i'm happy.

If its a Usb - IDE/Sata connector then its money well spent. Mine gets used all the time, great for working with someone elses hard drive that wont boot or has major errors/virus's, or just backing up files, or a poor mans removeable hard drive lol.

 

[Evolution_Ends_Here]

If its a Usb - IDE/Sata connector then its money well spent. Mine gets used all the time, great for working with someone elses hard drive that wont boot or has major errors/virus's, or just backing up files, or a poor mans removeable hard drive lol.

yep thats one. :dance:

 

[Commydoor]

Ok lets start by clearing some things up...... You havent had to short jumper pins to reset the bios since early P3's, well atleast that I have seen. Some P3's and P4's still have the jumper, as an alternative to removing the battery, you shouldnt need to do both.

I have an Asus P5P800SE motherboard that is a P4 dual core that i recently had a bios problem with which by the manual states to correctly clear the bios remove the battery THEN switch jumpers for 10 seconds then refit battery. Im sure i did mention to check the motherboard manual.


No it will ONLY boot the OS on the MASTER, IF for some reason their was no OS on the MASTER it would go to slave, and then work its way down to secondarys. It will NEVER try and BOOT TWO OS's on DIFFERENT hdd's.

Wish the machines of mine ive worked on over the years took notice of this rule of thumb lol.

It will depend on how the drive failed. The method you have described is great if some sectors have failed especially some early on sectors which can prevent booting. BUT if its just some sectors fail he should be able to run it as a slave or use a USB connector and get his data off it. I believe the problem is much more serious then just a couple of sectors.

I agree, it does depend on how it failed. He should be able to get any data off the good sectors. I was just saying all isnt lost. As you know the discs in the HDD are just billions of minute magnetic switches set to either on or off (0 or 1) and unless there is a physical defect on the disc resetting the hard drive switches to zero in effect repairs any bad sectors and can then be repartitioned and formatted. Is the easiest way to tell if the problem is serious and to toss the drive or whether its fixable and refitted back in the machine as a possible extra storage device.