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Trying to salvage a computer

Discussion in 'Technical Discussion' started by RetroKoH, Apr 12, 2016.

  1. RetroKoH

    RetroKoH

    Member
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    Project Sonic 8x16
    So about a week ago, my wife's computer came to a screeching halt... it literally went from working normally, to slowing down, to SCREECHING HALT, in a matter of a couple hours. Now it's at the point it won't even boot... Being almost 6 years old, we figured it COULD be a hard drive issue... so I tried taking the old one out and replacing it with a spare HDD I had lying around, and tried running a windows installation disk. No luck at all.

    With both HDD, I get the same error window pop up, it says:
    "Windows could not retrieve information about the disks on this computer."

    I don't see anything via Google that seems to help, so perhaps a tech expert here could steer me in the right direction?
     
  2. rata

    rata

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    Trying to be useful somehow.
    It may sound stupid, but did you already check all SATA ports and power connectors (or both IDEs if that's the case)?
    Do you have the possibility of checking that HDD in another computer?
     
  3. Rosie

    Rosie

    aka Rosie Member
    Well the good news is, if you've tried multiple disks and they're both giving the same error, it's a lot less likely that it's a hard disk failure. If you have access to another computer that you can check the hard drive on, I'd do that, and then I'd check the power supply. If you're getting the same error on more than one disk then it's best to check for sure that the disks haven't failed so you know for sure that it has to be something else. Check the motherboard to see that there isn't any obvious corrosion on any of the pots or connections. I'd also double check that the BIOS has the correct boot information, mine seems to enjoy changing stuff around after any sort of cock up.