fried harddrive?!

[sadie]

i had installed a new harddrive on my pc just a few weeks before a lightning storm apparently fried my surge protector. we noticed a burning plastic-like smell, and the "protecting" link was blinking red. the computer no longer booted into windows, either, and when i tried to reinstall, it said the harddrive was nonexistant.

so can i just buy another harddrive and install it? or should i be concerned about other problems, as well? it's been months since it broke, but i haven't had the extra money. now i do, but i don't want to spend it on a harddrive, only to have the computer still not work. i don't have enough money to put much more than a new harddrive into repairing it.

[MetalMilitia]

See if you can borrow a crappy old HDD from a friend and try it with that first.
If an electiral current stong enough to destoy a hard drive got into your computer you may find other components have been fried too. However usually in these situations the PSU will take the brunt of the surge thus saving the rest of your system.

Interestingly enough its not the lighting physically hitting a cable which causes a surge, it is a large spike of interference. You get simiar spikes from most electical motors and even nuclear bombs, which is why in the event of a nuclear war the first nukes will be detoned high above a country in an attempt to fry the electrics of nuclear installations which may lauch a counter attack.

[sadie]

[sadie]

okay. so i did nothing. now, it's been like--shit, i don't know--nine months since the damn pc worked.

one of my students, who is very handy with computers, told me to try to start it up and write down exactly what messages i got. he said from that, he'd be able to eliminate some possibilities, and we could go from there.

so today i pushed the button. and it started to boot windows. i got the scandisk, but afterwards, it booted fine.

i'm like, wtf?! why in the hell would it all of the sudden start working again, when months and months ago, it couldn't even read a harddrive?????

[executioneer]

chip creep? idk

[AChimp]

Maybe it just needed to hibernate. Like a bear.

[Archduke Tips]

This is kind of a dumb question, so I apologize if I am insulting your intelligence...

Did you replace the surge protector months ago when you tried to restart it?
If you were trying to run your computer off the burnt out surge protector, it may not have been able to source enough current to get your computer fully functioning. Most likely anything with a motor (harddrives, CD drives, etc.) would be the first components to stop functioning, but would otherwise be okay.

[sadie]

not a dumb question. or either i'm dumb. regardless, i did try to start the computer with the new surge protector several times to no avail.

[kahljorn]

that used to happen to my old computers/monitors and everything all the time.

[sadie]

i was trying to get the stupid pc set up, installing the cable via ethernet and all, when it locked up. i restarted, and to my utter grief, was met once again with a message asking for the boot disk. it wasn't reading the harddrive again. wtf?? is there something that could overheat and cause this problem. is that what yours did, kahl?

[Archduke Tips]

Sounds like it is your BIOS.
Your BIOS is a programmable read only memory that controls the computer when you first turn it on. It is responsible for telling your motherboard to load the operating system from your hard disk.

You could try reprogramming the BIOS. This is usually done by putting in a floppy disk with the BIOS program on it and holding a certain set of keys while the computer starts. You will have to look more into your specific type of motherboard to figure out how it is done. This might fix your problem for awhile...

Unfortunately, from what you have told me it sounds like your computer has a more serious problem. A component on your motherboard may be at the end of its life. Sometimes when you startup it works, and other times it doesn't. I would suggest that you attempt to reprogram your BIOS and see if that fixes things. Keep in mind, if you mess up your BIOS, your computer will essentially be a heavy paperweight until you fix it.