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[absolutfailure]

Computer is failing to boot from the hard drive or a CD. Before I go shopping for a replacement, anyone know of a way to verify if a hard drive is still good, when the computer won't boot. BIOS detects the CD and HD but that's about as far as I can get

Comments

[shorty36]

I'll tackle your second question: I have an IDE - USB adapter that I picked up at Microcenter a few years back, it works great. If you don't feel like purchasing one (I think they run about $25), I'll loan you mine for a few days....

Also, you can run IDE and SATA (the newer HD interface) in a system at the same time, you just have to be careful to make sure that they don't use the same channels on the controller.

[elkor]

Before I go shopping for a replacement, anyone know of a way to verify if a hard drive is still good,

DOS boot disk and chkdsk.exe, if you still have a 3.5" floppy drive. Otherwise, Norton Utilities does free trialware. Their disk utility should tell you whether you have a problem. I know the software (purchased) will run utilities from CD boot.

[staciadevi]

Good luck with all that. I hope your fist fared better than the keyboard. ;)

Hope tonight is okay, I'll be with you in spirit.

[troublesome1]

To check if the HD is damaged, and if it is, you can recover the data using SpinRite

[bizarrojack]

If you're thinking about trying to plug the old drive into a new PC, I expect you'll be fine, because I haven't seen one yet that doesn't still have an IDE connector, in addition to the newer SATA ports. I'm sure IDE-less motherboards exist, though, so doublecheck when you're looking to buy, but it's just not very common at all.
I hope it works and you can get your data off of it!