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Installed a new hard drive, now nothing works.

Ariesss

Reputable
Sep 30, 2015
5
0
4,510
Hey all, I have an emachines computer that I've had for 4-5 years and my hard drive failed last month, so I ordered a new WD blue 1tb HDD and a new copy of windows 7 OEM home premium. I got my HDD and os today and I put the new hard drive in and hooked up the sata and ata cables and plugged it all in and went to turn on my computer and nothing comes up, the bios doesn't show, it says "no signal found" on my monitor. The computer came with integrated onboard graphics but I updated to a cheap AMD graphics card. I've tried both the onboard and AMD card and nothing. So then I unplugged the new HDD and plugged in my old HDD because that would at least bring up the BIOS before I put the new one in, and nothing. Same problem. No bios. No signal for the monitor. No keyboard lights or mouse lights. Idk what to do. Can anybody give me some advice? (BTW I already checked to make sure no cables came loose and made sure they were plugged in.) Any help would be very appreciated so I don't have to send these back and have no computer again.

Edit: also the CPU fan, GPU fan and PSU fan all come on and the power button light comes on if you were wondering

Thank you for your time.
 
Welcome to the community, Ariesss!

I'm really sorry to hear about the issues with your system since the WD Blue HDD installation. 🙁 However, I'm afraid that this might not be the drive's fault and you're looking at a dead motherboard or power supply. I'd recommend you to try plugging the drive in a different computer and see how it will get recognized there, but even if it's not recognized you should still be able to access the BIOS if your motherboard was okay.

I'd recommend you to try resetting BIOS by re-seating the CMOS battery or resetting the jumper on the mobo. Here's a tutorial that explains these methods: http://www.wikihow.com/Reset-Your-BIOS

Here's a troubleshooting thread you should check out as well: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/295086-30-motherboard-dead

Hope it helps. Keep me posted!
SuperSoph_WD
 
Hey there, I'd just like to say thank you for your advice. Last night I ended up taking 2-3 hours to take apart the whole MOBO, CPU and heatsink and fan. I cleaned my heatsink with a brush because it had some dust/lint buildup and cleaned the fan and around the CPU socket. I also reseated my RAM after making sure they were clean and replugged every connection from the PSU. I put the old HDD back in and turned it on and viola, the BIOS came up so I quickly changed my boot from option to the new HDD. I turned off my computer and reinstalled my new WD Blue 1tb HDD and turned it on and my bios came up and the monitor and keyboard/mouse lights. So I fresh installed my new copy of windows 7 and it all worker smoothly. The only problem is that audio is only coming from the left speaker. I installer and updated all my sound drivers and video card and the problem still exists. Do you have any advice on how to fix this??

Shoot me a reply if you know how to fix this and thank you again for your response! I appreciate it and I ended up fixing it like I said above.

Hope this can help any others who has this problem currently or in the future.
 
Hey there, Ariesss!

Congrats! I'm truly glad that you've managed to resolve your bigger issue with the system. As for your speakers, I'd suggest you to check your volume controls and make sure all the settings are properly configured. There are some slider-type controls, make sure everything is balanced.
Another thing that might be causing this is a loose wire. While cleaning the dust and operating inside the laptop, the speaker wire might have come loose.
I'd recommend you to check the settings first, before dismantling your laptop again.

SuperSoph_WD
 
@SuperSoph_WD Hello! Thank you for a fast response once again, I have already checked my settings and even tried sliding the volume controls only on the right speaker and it still doesn't play, I have them balanced and I pressed the test button and it shows a diagram of the speakers(I have a realtek audio driver which is updated as I said before) and on the diagram test it only shows volume coming from the left speaker as well. I have also checked all the connections and wires inside to make sure I didn't knock anything loose. Also I have a desktop computer, not a laptop. ^^

Do you have any other suggestions? I really appreciate your responses and if you don't have any other suggestions that's okay. I've tried googling the problem and most people have said it would be the drivers, but I have updated, uninstalled, and updated again just to make sure and that appears to not be the problem. Shoot a reply if you have any other suggestions and thank you again for your responses!
 
Hi again, Ariesss!

I'm sorry for the desktop/laptop confusion. 😀 So that means that the speakers are not a part of the PC, is that so? Maybe they should appear in Device Manager and you could try uninstalling and re-installing them (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc725782.aspx).
Another thing I'd recommend you to do is check the motherboard manufacturer's website and make sure you get the audio drivers for your mobo from there, rather than Windows Updates.

Give it a try and let me know it goes!:)
Best of luck!
SuperSoph_WD