Need Urgent help! ASAP!

[Dr Eggman]

Hey all,

Recently, when i was trying to upgrade my Parent's HP, somethings went wrong.
I wiped the HDD and installed WinFLP. All was fine.
Then, i left the computer with their old documents copying from a flash drive.
When i came back, BSOD -->Kernel_Data_ Inpage_Error in atapi.sys, and the Floppy drive was clicking.
No prob, restart, all should be fine. But here's where the problem started.
When i restarted i get the message "Operating System not found."
So, i try to boot from CD. Side effect: Every time i start the PC the floppy drive clicks.
Booted from CD, all goes well.... except when i try to hit custom installation i get this:
"No hard disks can be located. This may be caused by a hardware configuration problem or missing drivers." etc. And it gives no technical info.
I also ran DISKPART. This cannot find anything either.
Guys, please help! I really need to get it working!

[Bender]

Looks like your HD is dead. Try another drive, and see if anything changes.

[Dr Eggman]

OH [censored].
Dead HD.
Problem is, my parents expect it to be running. And.....
I can't open it up. I'll if i can open it up. Oh man, if i can't get it fixed.....
my dad is going to catch a fit.

[Bender]

OH [censored].
Dead HD.
Problem is, my parents expect it to be running. And.....
I can't open it up. I'll if i can open it up. Oh man, if i can't get it fixed.....
my dad is going to catch a fit.

Why can't you open it?

[Dr Eggman]

Never mind that. I got it open.
I can't tell if its a HDD failure. I see a wire with 2 black, one blue and one yellow, and an empty port near the HD that it *might* plug into.
Pics soon.

[Frozenport]

Consider opening and removing and repluging any wires...

HD failure would be very odd...

[Dr Eggman]

Ok, i opened it up.
There was a spare "P8" cable near the HDD. Does that do anything?
I can't get to the far end of the ATA cable where it connects to the MotherBoard.

Also it wasnt making noise. Only the floppy drive.

[Day2Die]

Don't panic,
download Winternals ERD Commander and burn it
boot your computer from cd

See if your Windows can be repair.

[win98]

The power cable will be the one with 4 small wires or 1 thick one if its new enough to be sata. The drives connector will be a long, flat and grey or black with a very thin cable and lots of pins if its not sata and just IDE. SATA is a newer and faster way of pluggin in harddrive which supports hot swap like USB on some motherboards but if you wanted to install win FLP then i'm assuming its IDE in this case. Which will have a 4 pin power and 40 pin 40 or 80 wire ide cable the 80 wire ones were standard in the late 90's onwards as they allow speeds faster than ATA 33 anyway enough history basically make sure that the drive has both these things plugged in properly and that the data cable is plugged in at the motherboard.

[Rixel]

Ok, i opened it up.
There was a spare "P8" cable near the HDD. Does that do anything?
I can't get to the far end of the ATA cable where it connects to the MotherBoard.

Also it wasnt making noise. Only the floppy drive.

A p8 cable is a power cable there would be a lot of similar ones in there. Hard Drive Failure is unlikely, although i guess it depends on who made the drive some have a higher failure rate then others, the cable could of come loose but unless the machine was moved or hit recently it doesn't seem likely either. Unplug the cables and put them back in is the best solution at the moment. But if it fails to spin up at all then the hdd could be dead.
EDIT: seems win98 beat me to it.

[QuiescentWonder]

The floppy drive constantly is running... as in the light is always on? That means the cable is on upside down or the drive or motherboard is [censored]. If the cable is on upside down it means that someone went into the case, it doesn't just happen on it's own. That could be the source of the issue, someone screwed up something, check the connections.

You might need AHCI drivers if the computer is newer and the hard-drive is SATA. You'll be able to find them on HP's website, you'll need to put them on a floppy disk and press F6 when XP setup first starts to load the drivers from the disk.

[Whistler_fan]

Have you tryed to look in the BIOS to see if the HDD even is detected, if not try to revert the settings to default and save/reboot and look again, if it's still not detected turn off the computer and press on the IDE cable outlets (harddisk and motherboard) and see if there are no unplugd cables touching the case or something else. And try to disconnect the Floppy drive to see if that makes an difference. If that doent work you may consider that the drive is dead (wich it will be verry strange to do Puff DEAD!)

I forgot something check also the CD/DVD rom drive in the PC, the bluescreen says that there was an fail in the driver of you CD/DVD-rom (ATAPI==CDrom driver)

[Dr Eggman]

Ok, guys.
I think its an HD failure. (The drive is ATA btw)
So, i figured out its not the floppy clicking, but the HD.
Also, the computer does not pass POST with the HD in.

Any suggestions?

[RentedMule]

Scream some obscenities at it, set it on fire, then get a new one.

[motherboardlove]

quickly, before your parents go steaming (like I would, if someone touched my new 8000$ self-build computer) try to run a BIOS factory reset, and make sure the cables are plugged in right.

[Dr Eggman]

Scream some obscenities at it, set it on fire, then get a new one.

I think this is the best solution =P
Well, thanks for all your help guys. Now, i need to get me a new Hard Drive.

[QuiescentWonder]

The drive is ATA btw

Actually, SATA is ATA, as you can see by ATA in the name. Both older style parallel ATA and the new serial ATA are ATA and IDE. IDE is a pretty outdated term but it's practically synonymous with ATA, The best way to differentiate between the two in conversation is to say Serial ATA or Parallel ATA (SATA or PATA).

Also, if you're in the US, I'll recommend Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rchInDesc=

[ajdesign419]

Try running bootcfg /f, or bootfix from windows cd recovery console. Try rebuilding boot index also try
fixmbr. Hope that helps.

[DarkerJ]

Ok, guys.
I think its an HD failure. (The drive is ATA btw)
So, i figured out its not the floppy clicking, but the HD.
Also, the computer does not pass POST with the HD in.

Any suggestions?

If the hard drive clicks, you need to open up the hard drive itself, but keep it connected to the computer. Then turn on your computer and examine the disk and the clicking while its on. The hard disk itself might be loose.