# How to tell if your hard drive fried?



## Toggles18

Well, I was trying to get my CD ROM drive to work so I could reformat my hard drive on my desktop. So I plugged in the power cord from the P/S and didn't work, so I decided not thinking to switch the power cords going into the HD and the CD. So I turned on my PC and it started beeping, then went silent, so I turned it off. Then I could smell like something was burning. So I took apart my whole computer. The things that smelled were the hard drive, the CPU, and the back of the CPU fan. So I put everything back together and tried to turn on my computer, and it powers up and everything but nothing is displayed on my monitor. It sounds like the hard drive does the initial power up but then it doesn't sound like it is spinning inside. 

So I was wondering how can I determine what actually fried or if anything actually did? And if nothing did, than how would I fix this problem?

Edit* The beeping sound seemed to be coming from either the hard drive or the CD ROM drive.


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## wiseleo

Unfortunately, it's probably your hard drive. If so, bad news.

The first time, it shorted out the power supply. The power overload mechanism did not fully work, however. The second time, the power overload mechanism wasn't there, and you burned the electronics.

That made your problem go from "Annoyance" to "Nightmare" in terms of recovery costs.

There is a chance that only your logic board is burnt and that the rest of the drive is still functional. 

If, however, the motor is jammed, which probably is what caused the short in the first place, you have a very expensive problem. The beeping is typical of this specific fault.

As far as fixing it. I give advice how to fix problems when drives still spin and there is no heads crash condition. After that point, there is very little you can do without training and special tools.

Specifically:

You can't fix the logic board fault unless you want to learn data recovery and possess SMT soldering knowledge. You can't fix the internal fault without further special equipment and a lot of HDD-specific training.


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## wiseleo

duplicate


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## Toggles18

Actually that is good news to me. I only used that computer for gaming/ downloading stuff, plus I was going to reformat the HD so I had everything backed up off of it already that I needed. Plus a HD is a lot cheaper than buying a new CPU.


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## OMGmissinglink

Sounds like your PSU fried not the HD , never heard a HD beep.


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## Toggles18

If it was infact the HD, can I plug one out of other computer and hook it up and everything should be fine?

If it was the PSU (That is the Power Supply, right?), than the same thing should happen again? Also if it was the PSU shouldn't the computer not even turn on?


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## OMGmissinglink

Bad psu's can damage componets.. I'd try the HD on a working pc.


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## Toggles18

OMGmissinglink said:


> Bad psu's can damage componets.. I'd try the HD on a working pc.


Ok so how do I do that, just open my other PC and plug in the IDE to it and turn it on?


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## OMGmissinglink

Toggles18 said:


> Ok so how do I do that, just open my other PC and plug in the IDE to it and turn it on?



Yes, unplug the HD in the working pc ... plug in that one if it starts booting power off the pc , then once you've determined the componets that fried in that pc you can use the same HD using repair install.


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## Toggles18

Ok, well the HD powered up, and said windows didn't shut down properly and gave me a few options so I picked Start Windows Normally, and then it restarted itself and just repeated that cycle.

I just hooked up the questionable PSU with a good HD, and it boots up to Windows. 

So that means that it is the HD right? If so, I could just swap the good HD with the fried one and reformat and everything should work, correct?

Edit* So I tried to hook up the HD but nothing is being displayed on the monitor, but I believe that is because it doesn't have the drivers and stuff for my video card? How would I reformat the good HD and install all the drivers and stuff?


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## Toggles18

Sorry for double post, but I have some more information to add.

I have also tried the good HD with a good power supply and still nothing is displayed on the monitor.


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## OMGmissinglink

Did you connect the hd on a working pc does it boot?

If your PSU crapped out on the smelly pc that could of fried the mobo, processor .. etc


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## Toggles18

I tried the questionable HD on the working PC. It started up, went to a screen saying that "Windows Didn't Shut Down Properly, Please choose an option" 

The options are:
Start Windows Normally
Start Windows in Safe Mode
And two others. 

I say to Start Windows Normally and it restarts. And does the same thing over, it never gets passed that screen. I haven't tried the other options yet. I will tomorrow. 

Then I tried the questionable PSU with the working computer and it booted up the computer and I got to the desktop. Then I tried putting the questionable PSU back into the computer it was in while putting the good HD in that computer also. When I tried to boot it up, nothing on the monitor was displayed but I don't believe I heard the normal beep that the HD makes when you boot up a PC. Then I tried the good HD with the good PSU from the other computer and the same thing happened again. So I figured it was because the good HD didn't have the driver for my video card so it doesn't know how to display anything.

So did both the PSU and the HD go, or does it not display anything because the HD doesn't have the drivers for the video card? If that is the problem, how do I install them? Do I put it back into the good computer and turn it on and install them and try again?


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## wiseleo

OMGmissinglink said:


> Sounds like your PSU fried not the HD , never heard a HD beep.


OMG - Please be advised, hard drives do beep. I hear that beep every day when I work on hard drives that require physical recovery. The cost to fix that beep is extremely high. It constitutes about 1% of drive failures, so it is possible that you never heard it.

The source of beep is a stuck motor attempting to start and then giving up.

The bad PSU has to be thrown out, no question.

The original hard drive needs to be tested. The good HDD may be damaged as well because you plugged it into a bad PSU. Follow the recovery procedures in my signature before you attempt anything else.

The HD, under normal conditions, never makes a beep. The system makes a beep after completing its self-diagnostics (POST). However, if that test does not pass, it won't beep and you'll see nothing on the screen. That tells me that your motherboard may be fried as well. It's not a video driver issue.

You can test HDDs with HDDScan from http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/

In any event, as you don't need data recovery in this case, I am done with your case. I am sure others will help you with troubleshooting other components.


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## OMGmissinglink

Toggles18 said:


> I tried the questionable HD on the working PC. It started up, went to a screen saying that "Windows Didn't Shut Down Properly, Please choose an option"
> 
> The options are:
> Start Windows Normally
> Start Windows in Safe Mode
> And two others.
> 
> I say to Start Windows Normally and it restarts. And does the same thing over, it never gets passed that screen. I haven't tried the other options yet. I will tomorrow.
> 
> Then I tried the questionable PSU with the working computer and it booted up the computer and I got to the desktop. Then I tried putting the questionable PSU back into the computer it was in while putting the good HD in that computer also. When I tried to boot it up, nothing on the monitor was displayed but I don't believe I heard the normal beep that the HD makes when you boot up a PC. Then I tried the good HD with the good PSU from the other computer and the same thing happened again. So I figured it was because the good HD didn't have the driver for my video card so it doesn't know how to display anything.
> 
> So did both the PSU and the HD go, or does it not display anything because the HD doesn't have the drivers for the video card? If that is the problem, how do I install them? Do I put it back into the good computer and turn it on and install them and try again?


Hd's do not beep. start up bios beep is normal.. more than one short beep then you've other pc componets failures. either defective mobo's, ram, cpu's, gpu's!


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## OMGmissinglink

wiseleo said:


> OMG - Please be advised, hard drives do beep. I hear that beep every day when I work on hard drives that require physical recovery. The cost to fix that beep is extremely high. It constitutes about 1% of drive failures, so it is possible that you never heard it.


HD's do not beep. bios beeps during boot up 1 short beep. Failed HD's won't cause bios beeps.. half installed ribbons can cause the mobo errror beeps.

HD failures you can hear the circuit board whistle before it go's completly out!


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## OMGmissinglink

Toggles18,

Your HD is probably fine.. your next task is determining the other componets that are bad, suggest you remove the mobo out of the case.. place it on an insolated area, connect only necessary componets to post a boot.. mobo, cpu, gpu, ram, known working PSU. post if it boots or beeps..


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## Toggles18

Alright, I'll probably end up doing it tomorrow, just doing some other stuff currently. I'll update you with what happens.


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