Will a differently formatted HD read in bios

[Zimman]

Ok, long story short, I have two computers. My one computer last year acted up, thought it was the hard drive, and ended up being my mother board fried.

Last weekend, this same computer crapped out again. It goes to load windows xp, then when the bar is scrolling at the bottom just crashes. I've tried booting from disk, in safe mode, and it all fails. When I boot from disk and try repair, it tells me that there is no hard drive installed, so i'm fairly sure that my hard drive is just dead.

What I really want to know, is that if I take the hard drive from my other computer, and put it in my currently broken computer, will it read. I just want to make sure that it is the hard drive and not something else again. I'm fairly sure it wont boot up, but if I load up BIOS, will it show in there. I just dont want to erase my good hard drive, and mess anything up.

Thanks for any help/advise that you guys can give.

[Olo401]

Probably won't boot, since the windows install won't recognize the parts in the old computer. but it should at least be recognized by BIOS.

[Cephius]

Always keep backups of your data before swapping drives around.

That said, your computer should read the hard drive just fine assuming it's the same type (ie, if both drives are SATA) and the BIOS should have no problem reading it either.

Also just remember, swapping hard drives like that is sketchy because it contains drivers for your old computer, not your new one. Also, Windows will likely interpret it as a hardware change and require you to re-activate your license.

[Isiolia]

The HDD should show up in the BIOS regardless of the format. In the case of Windows install, if the formatting is odd/screwed up, it'll just jump to reformatting to install Windows, instead of giving you the option to install over top of it. At least, that's what a machine I'm working on did like an hour ago >_>

Possible for you to hook the drive up to your good computer to test it that way? What can happen sometimes is that the filesystem gets so borked that the computer can't do anything with it, but running a chkdsk or other utility may repair it so that it works.

[Zimman]

Other computer only has one drive slot, its fairly old but still used.

And I dont care about if it boots or not, I just wanted to make sure that it would read the hard drive in BIOS so that I would know its just a busted Hard Drive and not something else. I didn't want to go out and buy a 2tb and have it be something else. Guess i'll see if BIOS will read the hard drive then later today.

Thanks for the quick answers.

[Mafai]

If the computer is getting to the XP screen, it is definately reading the hard drive (and showing it correctly in the BIOs). I would recommend making a CD from this site and booting up using it.

Ultimate Boot CD - Overview

It has many hard drive tests you can run which will test your drive for you.

http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/attac...os-hdddiag.jpg

[Zimman]

Great...

It was not showing up in BIOS earlier today. I'll try to boot cd when I get out of class today.

[Zimman]

So I unplugged everything, plugged it back in and now the hard drive is showing in BIOS. Still does the same thing though. I used a boot disk, and went to reformat, which gave me some error. So HD is there, but not letting me even reformat.

Making Maf's cd now.

[Zimman]

Ok, so I have a Samsung MPO603H. Went to the site, downloaded the HUTIL. Ran it, and it shows zero working drives. I'm at this screen..

http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...util_img02.gif

Theres no HD listed at all.

[AUTO DETECTION]

RUN AUTO DETECTION AGAIN
ect

I'm stumped now. Any ideas?

Edit: It goes through a detection process and detects Intel ATA and pcidev controllers, but again, no Hard Drive.

[Isiolia]

Tried a different cable?

[Zimman]

Cables are all good. Checked that when I had it open

[Mafai]

Thats ur CD-ROM listed? try just ur HDD plugged in and see if BIOs shows it (obviously you wont be able to use the CD now). If your using cable select it might be messing up.

[Zimman]

Thats not my actual results. I was just using the picture as a reference. Mine shows nothing at all there. It shows as this setup basically.

[AUTO DETECTION]

RUN AUTO DETECTION AGAIN

There is nothing between the two, and nothing to select. Sorry, was just using the picture as a reference. Mine shows nothing at all. So basically its telling me theres no working drive?

[Mafai]

Seems that way, plug the other in and see if BIOs reads it, altho it actually wont boot 8it might if they are similar hardware)

[Zimman]

That will be my next step. Will probably be a couple days before I get a chance though. Thanks again everyone.

[Gippo]

if bios can see the drive, then the drive is not dead.

possibly the reason you cant see it in the windows setup screen is because you need a sata raid driver preinstalled or windows will crash out probably with a 0x0000007b error.

if you have a floppy disk drive in your pc, go to your pc manufacturer's website and download the firmware for your sata configuration on another pc, then copy it to a floppy. When you first load windows setup, it will ask you "Press f6 to install a 3rd party raid driver"

press it, then it will load more files, then ask you to pick the driver, it usually gives 2 or more options. Pick the one that matches your drive.

Then it sometimes says "blah blah, this driver is older than the one windows uses. do you want to use it anyway" pick yes , use the one im telling you to use.

it should then give you the normal press f8 to continue and see the drive.

[Gippo]

theres no reason it would even get to the xp splash screen if bios truely didnt see the drive. im betting you have a funky raid setup. see above.

[Zimman]

Well, it shows now. It only didn't show that one day, and im wondering if it was from my tinkering.

Not sure really though, I haven't had time to look at it since last time I messed with it.