HDD problem

You're using a Dell system aren't you?

Anyway, what's happening is your HDD is completely conking out while your machine is running, Windows XP is crashing big time, and does an automatic reset, because you have the "reboot on error" option on (which is the default). Upon reboot, the drive is still offline, and it fails the CMOS test. This leaves you with no bootable drive, so you don't get any further. Upon powering off the machine and powering it back on again, the drive comes back to life, and it's all good. I had this happen to me about a month ago. It turned out to be my PSU. The 5v line dropped like a rock randomly during operation, and the drive went into some kind of locked state, possibly as part of a safety mechanism. My money would be on the PSU. You could try a program like Motherboard Monitor and see if you can be there when it happens, and see if the voltages fluctuate. This was how I identified the cause on my machine.

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Original post by Nemesis2k2 You're using a Dell system aren't you?

In which case, hard drive failures are business as usual anyway. [smile]

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Original post by benryves Quote: Original post by Nemesis2k2 You're using a Dell system aren't you? In which case, hard drive failures are business as usual anyway. [smile]

I can attest to that. [depressed]

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Original post by Ra Quote: Original post by benryves Quote: Original post by Nemesis2k2 You're using a Dell system aren't you? In which case, hard drive failures are business as usual anyway. [smile] I can attest to that. [depressed]

All the machines at my last school were Dells, and the most common problem was hard drives just giving up. The machine I use at work appears to fry hard drives at random - thankfully this is prefaced by it "forgetting" that it exists a few times when booting, which is a nice warning that it's about to do something nasty.

If it only happens when you go into hybernation.. you could always turn that off and see if there are continuing effects.

If you have an Intel chipset and are running Intel Application Accelerator, try uninstalling that. With it installed I'd frequently have to deal with chkdsk at startup, and hibernation didn't work properly (it took ages to write to disk then failed to reload the OS from the hibernated state).

Software doesn't cause clunking noises from the HDD, and prevent it from passing a CMOS test. This is hardware related.

And on that note, I should have mentioned, back up your important files, if you haven't already. Sus behaviour from a HDD is never a good thing, and if it really is the drive, it can deteriorate very quickly. No point taking chances. You'll kick yourself if you loose important data when you knew something was wrong, and you had a chance to back it up. The first thing I did when I encountered this problem on my machine was buy a new HDD, because it had 10 years worth of files on it, and I wasn't willing to muck around.

The HD is only about 2 years old though (we upgraded through Dell)....could it be going bad already??

Anything's possible, but as I said, my money is on the PSU. Back up your most important files as a precaution anyway though.