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Upon power up i am getting "Fixed disk controller failure" and then it goes into "replace disk and strike any key" just like there was floppy in the drive. Although it's win 95 i have a win 98 boot disk that does boot and then i get a no fat or fat32 file error. i can get into cd drive support through this disk and if i am correct it is creating a virtual "C" drive. I try to run scandisk and it finds no fixed disks present. Power plug and ribbon cable are plugged into the hd...hard drive failure? Replace? it is a Compaq presario 4712..if i have to replace the hd are there size limitations i need to be concerned about?
Below are a few things to consider (in no particular order);
Check to be sure the power cable and disk controller cable connections are good and are correctly oriented. It matters which way the 40-pin cable is installed. If the system is typical, the edge of the connector with the identifying mark (usually the color red) will be closest to the red lead of the 4-pin power plug.
Has the CMOS setup been correctly configured?
Verify that the drive spins up when power is turned on.
Are there any Jumpers on the back of the hard drive that need to be set?
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Its possible the file system is corrupt, certainly if the fat is reported to be damaged, try www.computer-recovery.com they can recover any important data that you may have on the drive.
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the machine was shut down for a week while i was on vacation and the problem occurred upon my return...was working fine before this...there was no change in cabling or jumpers..i did verify all was plugged in tightly. Drive does sound like it is spinning but may be just the fan..this has always been a noisy machine.
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Any chance of lightning damage while you were away?
If you're comfortable with removing the case you could more easily tell, either by sound or feel, if the drive is spinning up.
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good chance of lightning i would say. power cord was unplugged BUT i did leave the phone line to the modem plugged in....no protection on that phone line..not a smooth move.
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Let me tell you a story.
Lightning took out a friends computer a few weeks ago. After close examination of the motherboard I noticed that an IC next to the PCI slots was burnt looking. The only card installed was a PCI modem. I took a toothpick and was actually able to scrape down into the IC and expose some "inner workings". Also, a trace running to the onboard video's outbound port was burned right off the board (about a 1" strip).
Checking the Main IC of the modem I found that a small triangular piece had literally been blown out of the middle of chip.
Moral of the story? I don't know. I suppose it's best to unplug your telephone cord because although the computer was not in use at the time of the incident it was connected to a phone line.
If I had your machine I would give it a good inspection and then try using a hard drive that I knew was good, in order to see how the rest of the computer responds.
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I just had that exact problem with an old rebuilt compaq. it wouldn't load the OS and gave the same error that you had. I put in the 98 boot disc along with the CD and had the system start up from the CD. the 98 reinstalled and set up all the old files and now the system runs just fine except for some beeping noises during OS boot. I'm checking on that now. you still may have some hard disc problems but you can try reinstalling the OS from the CD
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I've left my pc & modem plugged in during lightening storms as long as I can remember & have never had any problems with it. I do use a surge protector though, but thats it.
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Thanks everyone, the drive is spinning up and there is no obvious physical damage that i can see anywhere...i think i am going to call it a hd failure and replace. it is a Compaq presario 4712.. are there size limitations i need to be concerned about on the hd. it is a 6 yr. old machine...thanks again.
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notawirehead,
If you purchase a new hard drive there will most likely be included with it some software that can overcome any limitations your BIOS my have. Sorry that it didn't work out better for you.
best of luck
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Finally got a Maxtor 40gb, 7500 rpm and installed in this machine and after about 3 hours of fumbling got the thing partitioned and now i have a wonderful variety of about 21 drive letters to choose from. Got win95 reinstalled (wasn't easy either), but now no modem can be detected, only port it seems to look at is com3 (only com port in device manager also). If this was a lightning problem as suggested above for the hd. is it likely the modem was smoked also? i am also unable to boot directly to windows, i am getting the compaq logo screen and then a blue box on the lh bottom corner says F1 to boot, hit F1 and then goes ahead and loads windows, any way around this,,,,thanks in advance.
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On the board I spoke of above, yes, the modem was toast. Plugging that modem into a PCI slot on another computer (an otherwise working computer) caused the computer to not boot whatsoever!
The card was junk. Just this morning I was examining the motherboard from this computer and over by the CMOS battery I noticed that a very small surface mount transistor had a small piece blown out of it also.. so the saga continues.
I would recommend removing the modem and starting all over with the fdisk and format proceedures.
The hard drive should have come with EZ-BIOS software that would have enabled the entire drive to be seen and identified as one "letter" (C:).
You may not have followed a step somewhere. There is no way that I would tolerate all those different drives you ended up with.
Art
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"On the board I spoke of above, yes, the modem was toast. Plugging that modem into a PCI slot on another computer (an otherwise working computer) caused the computer to not boot whatsoever!" ??? so are you saying that it may have been my modem only that would cause the original hd to not boot? i did use the maxblastII software to partition and that is what i wound up with. my original hd was a 2.1gb
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Let me try to clarify;
Computer took a lightning strike through the telephone cord.Motherboard - destroyed.
Modem - destroyed.
Hard drive - not destroyed, but wouldn't boot..had to reformat and reinstall OS.Of course, another motherboard had to be used with the old hard drive in order to reinstall the OS as the old motherboard was inop.
Attempt to use old modem with this new motherboard failed...computer would not do anything, had to remove modem...then I noticed the damage that I should have looked for all along.To answer your last question; No, the hard drive had gotten its data corrupted, but the computer would at least get past POST when it was installed.
With the bad modem installed, the computer could not even begin POST.
It was probably only luck that saved the hard drive.
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art smass (love that moniker) thanks for all your help. i am going to get a new modem and see if that corrects everything, i don't want to put much more money into this machine. i am going to try and live with all those drive letters and convince the wife that i have turbo charged this thing until i can get a new machine
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Sorry I couldn't be of more help to you. I think I could talk you through the Maxtor EZ-Bios if you should change your mind. I have used it many times on my own systems. Anyway, the nice thing about computer parts is that they are very interchangeable, so if you get a really nice hardware modem (as differentiated from software modem) you can always put it on another computer some day.
Best of luck to you notawirehead, and if you want to try reposting your problem that is ok with me....I will monitor it and hopefully someone else can do more good for you.
Art
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