hard drive doesn't show in bios

[EzRiIgK]

hello all,

got a strange one (at least strange for me) Booting the computer (it a Dell inspiron ). It goes half way through progress bar at bottom of screen then I get "Hard-disk drive failure Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility". if I press F1 I get "no boot device found". If I press F2, entering the BIOS there is no hard drive detected. However, If I press ctrl-alt-del the computer will finishing booting to windows and seems to act normal, although a little slow.
I figure its the HD because, another windows installed HD boots fine. Can someone help me understand what could be wrong with the drive and if it can be fixed, or do I need to replace it. Any advice would be helpful.

Erik

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

"Hard-disk drive failure ........"

That says it all, the drive must be replaced.

If you've any important data on it I suggest you back it up now before the drive dies on you.

 

[EzRiIgK]

Hi Phillip,

I'm going to replace the drive anyway. I just wanted to get an understanding of how the drive can NOT show in the BIOS, yet ctrl-alt-del finishes the boot with no discernible affect of the "bad drive"!

Erik

 

[mbarnes86]

HI

It may be your hard drive is slow in starting up and the delay is enough to get it going

Try removing battery , removing hard drive then re inserting drive
Incase there is a bad connection

Most Dell laptops have hard drive in a tray which slides out after removing 1 screw

Again many Dell laptops have hard drive diagnostics in the Bios so you can run a test

Regards
Mike Barnes

 

[EzRiIgK]

Hi Mike,

Thanks for the reply. I guess I should have clarified, I am using a desktop not a laptop. My bad!!!
I have removed the faulty HD and put in another and all boots fine, so Im sure its the hd. I just wonder if I cant keep using the ctrl-alt-del solution to boot to windows (backing up all my important files first) and run until the drive dies for good. may be a week or may last years. This is why I am trying to understand why it is allowing the computer to boot with the drive absent from the BIOS, yet booting with the ctrl-alt-del.

Regards, Erik

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

see if there is a BIOS setting for a delay before hard drive is started up

This used to be common in older BIOS / PC where hard drives consumed more power and you wanted a different delay for each hard drive to avoid over loading the PSU

Is this hard drive being recognised in another PC ?

regards
Mike Barnes