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Giftofdeprivation
Discerning Vagrant



Registered: 07/20/13
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What is agood forum for computer repair?
#22209134 - 09/08/15 08:02 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Hey all!
I've spent the better part of the last two days attempting to repair my computer. I've hit my head into this same darn wall so many times, it's turned to mush!
What is a good place to seek step by step support from a community of computer gurus?!
If you are interested, I've isolated my problem pretty well: when I plug in the SATA to my HDD (whether the data cord is in or not), my computer fails to boot from any device. Doesn't matter what the boot sequence looks like, if it's a DVD, USB, or another HDD, the faulty one seems to interfere. This is frustrating because my desktop's BIOS will recognize it and can even flash things off of it, but I can't figure out a way to delete the boot registry outright (if that even is the issue)
Plugging it in hot doesn't work either. Next step is getting my hammer... Thanks for any advice you may have!
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makaveli8x8
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Registered: 02/28/06
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sounds like what your describing is your boot record MBR is corrupt?
if you google "fixing MBR" you should land on some dos commands you can run to fix it, might also be some repair disks.
but a safer method to try first is to press F8 during boot, or putting your windows cd in, and using windows repair to try and fix it.
another option is booting to a Linux live cd
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  We were sent to hell for eternity Ø h® We play on earth to pass the time Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.
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Giftofdeprivation
Discerning Vagrant



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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: makaveli8x8]
#22209196 - 09/08/15 08:13 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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I *think* the boot reg is fucked. I really couldn't say.
The problem is, when the HDD is connected to the system (it doesn't matter what else is connected, or in what boot order it is set), the system can enter BIOS and that's it.
-Booting a recovery disk (or recovery from HDD)pops up the windows 8 logo, then either moves to a blank screen, or freezes with the logo present. -booting plain ol' windows gets the comp in a permanent boot with the "starting windows" screen up. -booting recovery/windows, then plugging in the HDD does nothing. -the bucket of water I'm about to pour on it might help 
idk, maybe the HDD is corrupt outright, but I can see the files in the BIOS flasher; I just can't do anything with them.
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Shroomslip
Architekt



Registered: 11/25/12
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There's a tech forum here.
The only dedicated computer forum I've ever used is devhardware. Though looking at it now, it appears to be a ghost town. Computer forums are one of the hardest ones to find a good one for. They're usually either dead or filled with people who don't know what they're talking about.
BTW exactly what you've described here sounds like an issue I had awhile back with a malfunctioning drive. I spent a day or two trying to fix the damn thing. Then bought an external drive housing and tried to get my files off it that way. Finally I tried transferring the discs manually to a working drive, which failed miserably, but at that point it was pretty much just a desperate last try, I knew chances of success were low. I wasn't gonna send it off or anything to get my data off of it. Nothing was irreplaceable, it would just be a pain in the ass to get it all back.
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With my face against the floor I can’t see who knocked me out of the way. I don’t want to get back up but I have to so it might as well be today. Nothing appeals to me no one feels like me, I’m too busy being calm to disappear. I’m in no shape to be alone contrary to the shit that you might hear. You can't wake up, this is not a dream. You're part of a machine, you are not a human being With your face all made up, living on a screen. Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline
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Giftofdeprivation
Discerning Vagrant



Registered: 07/20/13
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Oh. When I remove the HDD's SATA (the power, not the data), both the disk and other HDD boot windows and recovery just fine  Again, not a boot order issue. I've flat out disable the faulty one from the boot sequence.
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Giftofdeprivation
Discerning Vagrant



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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: Shroomslip]
#22209244 - 09/08/15 08:21 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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That is exactly where my mind is going, man. You always have amazing advice!
So were you able to finally find a solution? There's so darn much work on that HDD. The external housing failed?
And yeah, it seems like there's a small community in a few places, but most everyone just posts here
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makaveli8x8
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you shouldn't even see a logo screen when u do F8......I don't think your doing it right, unless windows 8 is different I never remember seeing a logo screen on F8, the whole point of F8 is to get options BEFORE the OS loads at all, you should be spamming F8 soon as your computer boots and hitting it till you get into the options menu, but again windows 8 may be different button or some shit.
but one other thing, if your getting a windows logo screen then your boot record should be fine, the boot record is so it knows where to find your OS, so you got a logo screen so it found it. at least this is my understanding, 95% sure on that.
so your windows files are corrupt that's why it stops loading, or you are having hardware errors.
so a quick thing to do is to reset your bios, pull the battery, clear the cmos with power off.
also never plug shit in while the power is on, or unplug it, you can cause shorts or static which destroys shit easy. there's a reason they make those fancy static gloves, its serious business.
also what are you doing in the bios flasher? you didn't flash your bios during this problem did you?
Quote:
can even flash things off of it
all the bios flashers ive seen only let you flash the bios, so that sounds like that might have been what u were doing
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  We were sent to hell for eternity Ø h® We play on earth to pass the time Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.
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Shroomslip
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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: Shroomslip] 1
#22209254 - 09/08/15 08:23 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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This is the same problem I had with mine. If I put in another HDD, it started fine, if I put in the second (bad) drive and put it as slave/secondary it would not boot up, it would just forever get stuck at starting windows. If I completely removed the second drive from the boot menu, it would still not start up. The only time it would start up, was then the drive was not physically connected to the computer. I'm no expert so I don't know why it would happen that way, but like I said, I spent about 2 days trying to figure it out and couldn't fix it. I don't remember everything I tried, but I tried a lot. All different sets of configurations and settings. Nothing worked.
And yes the external housing failed. It would power the drive and it would spin the discs, but you could never access any of the files and about 70% of the time, it wouldn't even "detect" the drive on the computer. The few times it did read the drive, I couldn't get into it.
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With my face against the floor I can’t see who knocked me out of the way. I don’t want to get back up but I have to so it might as well be today. Nothing appeals to me no one feels like me, I’m too busy being calm to disappear. I’m in no shape to be alone contrary to the shit that you might hear. You can't wake up, this is not a dream. You're part of a machine, you are not a human being With your face all made up, living on a screen. Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline
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Shroomslip
Architekt



Registered: 11/25/12
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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: Shroomslip]
#22209262 - 09/08/15 08:25 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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If your shit is irreplaceable, send it off to a data recovery place. Mine wasn't so I just wasn't going to bother with it. In the time it'd take to get the drive to them and get my files back, I'd of already gotten everything back.
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With my face against the floor I can’t see who knocked me out of the way. I don’t want to get back up but I have to so it might as well be today. Nothing appeals to me no one feels like me, I’m too busy being calm to disappear. I’m in no shape to be alone contrary to the shit that you might hear. You can't wake up, this is not a dream. You're part of a machine, you are not a human being With your face all made up, living on a screen. Low on self esteem, so you run on gasoline
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makaveli8x8
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Registered: 02/28/06
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Quote:
Giftofdeprivation said: Oh. When I remove the HDD's SATA (the power, not the data), both the disk and other HDD boot windows and recovery just fine  Again, not a boot order issue. I've flat out disable the faulty one from the boot sequence.
oh for some reason I thought you couldn't get your computer to boot at all weither it was plugged in or not (the hdd).
if you have a spare HDD then reinstall windows onto that one, then make that one the first priority. if your computer won't boot with the broken one plugged in after that, then its a hardware failure and you either gotta pay to get it fixed or make a very risky attempt to service it yourself by cracking it open and looking for an obvious problem
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  We were sent to hell for eternity Ø h® We play on earth to pass the time Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.
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makaveli8x8
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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: makaveli8x8]
#22209278 - 09/08/15 08:28 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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changing the priority right now without another OS tho, it will just look in those other locations, find nothing, and then go to try the broke drive, so you need an OS in another place and have it load first
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  We were sent to hell for eternity Ø h® We play on earth to pass the time Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.
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Giftofdeprivation
Discerning Vagrant



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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: makaveli8x8]
#22209282 - 09/08/15 08:29 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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F8 leads to the boot list, yes, but anything I select from there crashes the comp in the ways I've described. I had hoped there would be safe mode/CMOS options in there, but it only lets me choose the device.
If what you say is true about the logo indicating a good boot, then it must be hardware. Idk how else the one HDD can interfere with the boot of another.
The hotswap was a last ditch thing. I gotcha though, I just don't have a lot to lose at this point.
Finally, I flashed the BIOS via popping the battery and all it did was reset my clock no love after trying to boot from my various devices (HDD/DVDRom)
It's the Asus Flash 2 utility. It was honestly the first time I'd seen it. It lets me go into any HDD directory (including the bad one!!!) and navigate through, to flash certain file types, or something. I don't really know, but there's only the option to flash. No editing/moving/deleting of files.
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makaveli8x8
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did you try F10 maybe?
also like I said if you have the windows disc it will pull the safe mode shit off the disc instead of the hard drive which should get you a little further in
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  We were sent to hell for eternity Ø h® We play on earth to pass the time Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.
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Giftofdeprivation
Discerning Vagrant



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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: Shroomslip]
#22209300 - 09/08/15 08:33 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
Shroomslip said: This is the same problem I had with mine. If I put in another HDD, it started fine, if I put in the second (bad) drive and put it as slave/secondary it would not boot up, it would just forever get stuck at starting windows. If I completely removed the second drive from the boot menu, it would still not start up. The only time it would start up, was then the drive was not physically connected to the computer. I'm no expert so I don't know why it would happen that way, but like I said, I spent about 2 days trying to figure it out and couldn't fix it. I don't remember everything I tried, but I tried a lot. All different sets of configurations and settings. Nothing worked.
And yes the external housing failed. It would power the drive and it would spin the discs, but you could never access any of the files and about 70% of the time, it wouldn't even "detect" the drive on the computer. The few times it did read the drive, I couldn't get into it.
You've described my situation exactly. I'm convinced you must be right and it's gone 
I wonder if I can crack the fucker open (with gloves) and just load it into another HDD? It's not irreplaceable and I'm cheap. It just has at least 300 hours of game mods, android dev stuff, and pictures.... Eh, maybe I'll call a recovery place. Lol
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The Moose
Alces alces


Registered: 08/31/15
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In relation to wiping your BIOS, a lot of motherboards have a jumper pin, usually near the battery, that has a couple settings. There is one setting you can put it on to wipe the BIOS settings and then you swap it back to normal. Not sure on the models that use this but worth a look.
Have you tried using the HD causing issues with another motherboard?
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Giftofdeprivation
Discerning Vagrant



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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: makaveli8x8]
#22209308 - 09/08/15 08:35 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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I don't remember if I did or not. Fuggit, here goes nothing! BRB
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moonrockmushy
High on Spite



Registered: 07/01/05
Posts: 19,067
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It sounds alot like a power supply problem I had.
What sort of rig are you running? Is it built using mismatched parts or do you already know all these components are compatible?
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Atreyu
Never Ending


Registered: 03/18/14
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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: The Moose]
#22209317 - 09/08/15 08:36 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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I've used PChelpforum.com with success.
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Giftofdeprivation
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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: The Moose]
#22209318 - 09/08/15 08:36 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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Quote:
The Moose said: Have you tried using the HD causing issues with another motherboard?
Two. 
The BIOS reset completely, including date/time, so I think pulling the battery did it.... Which is to say, it didn't do it, in relation to the boot issue.
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makaveli8x8
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Re: What is agood forum for computer repair? [Re: The Moose]
#22209320 - 09/08/15 08:37 PM (8 years, 4 months ago) |
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I wouldn't call it gone yet, the fact you can see the files means its still working to some extent, again it could just be a corrupt OS, that doesn't mean the hard drive is bad.
infact there are hard drive cd's you can burn that will load from boot, to check your hard drive to see if it is still good. western digital for example has it on their website, burn it to a cd or flash drive, load it, test the drive
again try to get windows cd to boot
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  We were sent to hell for eternity Ø h® We play on earth to pass the time Over-population the root of all Evil-brings the Elites Closer to the gates.
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