[DarbyC]

My computer stated making a clicking sound (about 3 clicks per second) and I figured my hard drive was bad. The computer would not boot up the next few times I tried it, but it eventually did boot up one last time, and I backed all the data I needed to back up.

Now when I try to boot up, on the screen it says F1 to retry boot or F2 to setup utility. F1 doesn't work and F2 takes me to the setup utility. There it says that Primary Drive 0 is Unknown Device, Secondary Drive 0 is Unknown Device and Secondary Drive 1 is Unknown Device. Diskette Drive A: seems to be OK.

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Let the computer sit for a while. Then come back and see if you can enable S.M.A.R.T. in the BIOS. That will tell you if there is a problem with the hard drive. But right now it sounds like there is.

You could try checking the obvious like power and IDE cables are plugged in. Other than that I don't know what else to try.

[Alopeke]

Let the computer sit for a while. Then come back and see if you can enable S.M.A.R.T. in the BIOS. That will tell you if there is a problem with the hard drive. But right now it sounds like there is.

You could try checking the obvious like power and IDE cables are plugged in. Other than that I don't know what else to try.

[DarbyC]

I have XP Home and I don't see anything in the BIOS that says S.M.A.R.T. Where should I look?

[dsenette]

due to the clicking sound i would say the drive is dead. sounds like a read/write head making contact with the platter, or possibly a bearing failure...you should go ahead and get a new drive in the machine

[DarbyC]

The hard drive being bad would cause the DVD and CD burner drives to be 'Unknown Device' in the BIOS?

[dsenette]

yeah (your last name isn't connely {spelling?} is it?) it would cause that

[Mxrider]

In some Bios versions, when at the main screen, you must press CTRL+F1, this allows you to acces advanced settings. Then go into Advanced CMOS, and look for H.D.D. S.M.A.R.T. capability and enable it. This is NOT true for every mobo/Bios, just from personal experience.

[DarbyC]

Cntrl + F1 does nothing.

I will probably order a hard drive. Where can I get good step-by-step instructions on installing a hard drive and getting everything set up. I'm obviously not an advanced user and will need assistance doing this.

As far as my last name, it is not connely. If the question is in reference to the 'C' at the end of my user name...humorously enough (and no pun intended whatsoever), it is short for 'Crash'

[Emery Herman]

Have you tried slaving the drive to another pc?

My hard drive makes 3 ''clicks'' when it starts up and then works fine.

Edited by Emery Herman, 01 October 2005 - 12:37 PM.

[wannabe1]

Hi DarbyC...

As a rule, new hard drives come with pretty good instructions and a CD for preparation. (partitioning and formatting) And there's always G2G for those quick questions. It's really not as hard as you would think.

Good Luck!

wannabe1

[Mxrider]

Hi DarbyC...

As a rule, new hard drives come with pretty good instructions and a CD for preparation. (partitioning and formatting)  And there's always G2G for those quick questions.  It's really not as hard as you would think.

Good Luck!

wannabe1

/Sheepishly
Not if you save 20-30% and get an OEM drive./end sheepishly

But most manufacturers have everything you need on their website. It is not hard at all.

[Fenor]

When you take out the hard drive and leave the rest plugged in the way it was when it was working fine before the clicking hardrive does the bios recognize everything. And yes a bad hard drive can make cause everything to be unrecognizable in the bios. I've even seen it cause the whole motherboard not to power on at all.

Fenor

[DarbyC]

I was looking at hard drives to order and I found a Western Digital like the one I have, 80 gig, but there are 2 choices: 2MB buffer or 8MB buffer.

Would there be any reason the one with 8MB buffer wouldn't work? If it would improve performance by spending $2 more, I will definitely get the one with 8MB buffer.

Thank you.

[OwNt]

Hello, DarbyC.

There won't be much of a noticeable difference between 2 and 8mb cache sizes. But for that little amount of price difference, definitely go for the 8mb.

Also, make sure you check out places like NewEgg and ZipZoomFly - as they usually have very good deals on hard drives. On newegg, most of them are OEMs, which means it is just the hard drive, which is fine. If you need any retail stuff you can just get it off the manufactuers website.

-OwNt

[DarbyC]

I received my Western Digital 80 GB hard drive today, but there were no instructions and no software with it.

I found a site with instructions how to install a hard drive, but it was referring to Windows 95 & 98. The site said I needed to have fdisk.exe and a program to partition the hard drive (I don't recall the name of it) on a bootable 3.5" diskette, but like I said, they weren't talking about XP.

If there's anybody out there 'listening' I would appreciate some help.