Seven steps to troubleshooting
hardisk
Do these seven steps one by one.
1. Physical connectivity :Is
the drive receiving power? Is it plugged
into the PC by a correctly connected ribbon
cable? For IDE drives, are its jumpers
set correctly? Or with SCSI drives, are
its SCSI termination and ID set correctly?
2. BIOS setup :Does the BIOS
see the drive?
3. Viruses - Does the drive contain any
boot sector viruses that need to be removed
before continuing?
4. Partitioning :Does
FDISK find a valid partition on the drive?
Is it active?
5. Formatting :Is the
drive formatted using a file system that
the OS can recognize?
6. Drive errors :Is a
physical or logical drive error causing
read/write problems on the drive?
7. Operating system :Does
your OS have a feature that checks the
status of each drive on your system? If
so, what is that status?
Problem: System hangs
Solution:
Following these steps:
1. Open the My Computer
window by double-click on My Computer.
2. Select the disk that you want
to diagnose and repair.
3. Choose Properties
from the File menu. You should see the
Properties window for the drive that you
selected.
4. Choose the Tools tab.
5. Press the Check Now
button under Error Checking Status.
6. Depending on your
version of Windows, choose either "Thorough"
or "Scan for and Attempt Recovery
of Bad Sectors."
7. Click on Start.
Problem: When hard disk is unable
to boot
Solution:
To solve this problem, following
these steps:
After the computer has booted with the disk
try to access drive C: by issuing the standard
directory command, DIR C: <enter>
sys a: c: <enter> the sys file has
to be on the floppy disk. If it is not then
find a disk that has the file or use another
computer to copy the file to the floppy
disk. You can also copy the command.com
file from the floppy to the hard drive by
typing. Copy a:\command.com c:\command.com
<enter>Then computer will ask you
to verify the operation.
Problem: Wrong electrical connection
Solution:To remove this type of
problem, you just follow these steps:
• Make sure the
cable connections are correct.
• Check the 4-wire connector that
carries power and makes sure it is properly
plugged in. This connector has a taper on
one end and cannot be put on backwards.
• When power is first applied to the
computer, the hard drive light will momentarily
come on which is a good indication that
the drive is getting power. Also the vibration
of the spinning platter and the slight hum
will verify that the drive is plugged in.
Problem: Recording on the hard
drive (read or write)
Solution:
These type or problems are caused when
the computer is unexpectedly rebooted
after a lock-up or perhaps a power failure.
They are easy to troubleshoot and repair.
Simply run the scandisk program which
is found in the Start/Programs/Accessories/System
Tools folder and allow the computer to
repair any errors found.
Conflict with the
IRQ settings in hard disk
Solution:
What happens is some times a different
device such as a sound card will use the
IRQ 15 by default or because the settings
were changed by a user. This causes the
computer to not see the secondary hard
drives immediately after the installation
of this device using IRQ 15. The only
way to fix this problem is to change this
device so that it uses a different IRQ
setting.
Hard disk is used in computer as a data storage
device. A computer user faces some common
problems in hard disk. This article provides
you the basic hard disk troubleshooting tips
and techniques so a new computer user can
solve these common problems by the help of
this article.
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