Hard Drive Failure / No boot device available

glebe · 31-10-2008 7:18pm #1

Ok guys and gals, there are two HD in my pc and it appears one of them has failed.
Have identified which one and disconnected. Other one is connected as before.
Trying to boot up pc on just one HD and keep getting message No boot device available or Boot from CD. Have tried messing about with boot sequence but no joy. Any ideas.

Also is any info on the failed HD unrecoverable.

Thanks

BooShank · 31-10-2008 7:30pm

Hi,

You could have a look at the following product if the info on the wonky drive is valuable and the drive failure symptoms resemble those described in the product overview.

SpinRite is the product name and info is available on
http://www.grc.com/intro.htm

I haven't used it but from listening to the author's podcasts he seems to really know his stuff and gets plaudits from customers all the time.

BR
BooShank

Voodu Child · 31-10-2008 7:31pm

Which drive had the OS? Or were they in raid?

If the drive that failed had the OS, then obviously the system won't boot up with it removed.

BooShank · 31-10-2008 7:33pm

Also:

If you are having trouble booting from the healthy drive it sould be because the jumper setting on the healthy drive is not set to master.

The jumper is a little connector for pins located physically on the drive. You may have to look up the drive specs to find out which pins you need to connect up.

BR
Ger

BooShank · 31-10-2008 7:34pm

Voodoo's comment should be checked out first though.

BR
Ger

BCawley · 31-10-2008 7:35pm

You could try booting into linux from a usb, and copying the important data on the hardrive. Link Dont forget to set the bios to boot the usb first.
That should determine whether the HDD is generally fecked or is it something else

glebe · 31-10-2008 8:30pm

Thanks for the reply guys,

Cant really answer any of yor questions asked. My pc knowlege is limited.
HDD were stacked one over the other and both connected. Dont know what drive OS was on. I take it that would be the first thing to find out but how would I go about that?

biologikal · 01-11-2008 1:18am

My first question would have been, "How do you know a hard drive has failed? Did you see a message as the PC was trying to boot/startup?"

Could be a simple matter of a dusty PC, that needs some connections reseated.

x in the city · 01-11-2008 1:30am

stick your 2 HDDs into another pc and examine them for an OS,.. then you can see which is which....

while your at it get a marker and mark one with OS so you know in future..

Hard Drive Failure / No boot device available

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