Totally bummed, computer wont boot
 

Title says it all.
HD sounds like it starts to spin up but then just dies and it quits like I have not even pushed the button.
Looking at micro center, they have an old gaming machine on sale.
I dont game but do use it for pictures.
Sorry for the lack of punctuation, I am on my tablet.
Advice?

Buy Samsung SSD 500GB drive on Amazon. It'll come with software.
Buy USB-SATA cable from Amazon.

Clone existing hard drive to SSD drive. Use a friend's computer if needed.
Be happy with newly refreshed computer.

Is this a PC or Mac? Sounds like a possible power supply issue or worst case hard drive failure. Do you get any sort of messages/text on your monitor?

One of the things that happens with platter drives when they fail is they can't spin up from a dead start fast enough.

Sometimes you get lucky and can get them starting to spin with rapid reboots and they come up to speed.

But that's only to be used long enough to get your data off cause the drive is toast.

Some people have had luck with putting the drive, let it cool down to room temp, into a plastic bag then sticking in the freezer for a bit. Immediately reinstall cold and try.

You really have not much to lose.

If there is no data on it that you care about get an SSD from Amazon to swap in and move along with life.

Sorry to hear.

I had an HD failure on a MacBook Pro and based on advice I received here, replaced the HD myself with a SS HD.

Trust me, if I can do it, you can.

Still works like a champ.

Good luck!

If it is the hard drive itself, sometimes if the cables are long enough you can take the drive out of the mounts and give it a rotational flick like spinning a basketball and it will give the drive enough momentum to spin up. Freezing sometimes works.

Might be the PS has gone kaput too.

That is, if you want to recover anything from it.

Oh, once it is up, don't shut it down until you are done with it.

This is a pc, not a mac.
How can I clone the drive if it wont even spin up?
No messages or any text on screen when attempting to boot. Just hear the drive starting up and then nothing and it shuts down.

Try the drive in another machine?

Nothing much to loose except a couple years worth of pictures.
Yeah, I know.
No need to tell me about backing up.

For $12-$15 you can get an external enclosure with its own power and it connect to another PC just like a flash drive. Might allow the unit to spin up that way.

I have one of those that I put an old hd in when I took down another computer.

Worth a shot.

Yeah, just to get pictures off it if it will spin.
Guess I will break out my daughters old laptop and see if I can get it to spin when hooked up to it.

Never heard of the powered enclosure. Sounds like a good option. Linky?

There are also cables to connect to USB 3.0 ports.
It won't clone the OS by itself but should allow transfer of pics as an external HD.
https://www.neweggbusiness.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9B-12-400-693&nm_mc=knc-msnsearchb2b&cm_mmc=knc-msnsearchb2b-_-pla-_-usb+converters-_-startech-_-9b12400693&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=knc-msnsearchb2b&msclkid=4235911d179516c8c821cf00e26b8 b90&gclid=CKylsO7Kg-cCFROsxQIdY30EWg&gclsrc=ds
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1579022066.jpg

There are some file recovery software programs out there once it's spinning.
https://fossbytes.com/top-best-free-data-recovery-software-2016/

OK, I opened up the box and disconnected the hds. I then hooked up what I think is the old drive I added from my old computer when I got this one.
I tried to boot it and got a windows startup repair dialog box.
It is attempting repairs.

I tried spinning the drives when I took out the frame they are in but it didnt help.
At least the old old drive is spinning.
I dont think I deleted the os files from it when I added it as a slave.

Sounds like sticktion, take out the hard drive and give it a little thump of the top (like a light fist hit on the counter) put it back in and try again, otherwise see if you can boot of a CD or USB device to see if you can see the drive.

I don't think it is sticktion since I can hear it start to spin and then it just stops. I've shaken the drives too.
I got it so I could get the other drive going, but it wouldn't boot either as it got stuck in a repair loop. Now I can't get it going either.
I got my daughter's old laptop going now but it's not going to work for long.
I wish I could get the 'puter to boot off a cd but it won't stay on long enough to do anything with it.
I've never had computer so dead.

Is there some way to check the power supply other than sub'ing in another one?

I just looked at the date on one of the drives.
04 April 2009.
Maybe I'm beating a dead horse here.

The date on the one tb drive is 04 Dec 2015

(I'm a stoneage layman but get to the CMD or RUN and)

https://appuals.com/chkdsk-f-r-vs-chkdsk-r-f/
The chkdsk /r /f locates bad sectors and recovers readable information and then fixes the errors.
The chkdsk /f /r does the same thing but in the opposite order.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929833/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system
The sfc /scannow command will scan all protected system files, and replace corrupted files with a cached copy that is located in a compressed folder at %WinDir% System32dllcache.

I would try this first and see if the drive's dead or it's a software issue.

You need something like this or the equivalent.
https://www.apricorn.com/upgrades/ez-upgrade-3-0

And don't manhandle it !

I think the drives are dead.
I thought I had the cables to hook up the drive externally but have not been able to find them.
I am looking at computers at micro center.
The new specs are confusing at best.
I know I want 16gb of RAM as that helps with working with pictures.
I also think I need seperate video ram, not shared.
Any of you guys want to take a look and make a recco?
Cheaper is better, this computer was a 500 buck one I added RAM to and a 1gb video card just to get it to handle my photos.

A dedicated graphics chip will help if you are editing photos or anything. I am not sure what you use, but our video editing software can make use of Cuda so it is nVidia for us.

For viewing pics or 1080p video, you don't need much.

i am thinking this one might be a good replacement machine...

https://www.microcenter.com/product/615524/acer-nitro-50-gaming-computer

I was using a very basic photo editor which came loaded on the computer. Can't recall the name now. It could do the very basic stuff photo shop can do.

That's actually a pretty good deal.

You'd pay more than that if you sourced the parts separately and built it.

Meaning the sum of the parts is worth more than the cost of the whole.

Doesn't have a lot of expansion room for additional PCIe cards and only two RAM slots but if you upgrade the ram in the future you can get to 16 cheap enough.

It has 4 ram slots, 1 of which is used, I dont know if the video ram would work.

If I took out the optane memory, that would open the M.2 slots for an ssd drive wouldnt it?

Thanks Zeke.
I think the housing I was thinking of was one I bought for a laptop hd I saved when my sons old laptop gave up.
I found it and it is working fine.
I will have to talk to my wife about how much budget I have to work with.

I would send it to a data retrieval shop.

Yes, I will make doubly sure they are dead before I take that step.

BTDT.

Before I knew to back up a million years ago, I had a HD stop working. Took it to a place in Atlanta that gets the data back. They said it was toast.

I still have the HD 10+. years later just in case...

I buy kid/gamer built systems off c-list a gen or two old when they up grade to the newest

current is a 6 core 12 thread i7 with a gtx980 card on a gamer M/B with more slots then I will ever use came with a small SSD and big spinning hd with room and hook ups for a lot more

way way better then any CORPrat built units at less then 1/2 the parts cost

Yes but why.

Optane is caching memory that is meant to make a platter drive as fast as SSD.

m2 ssd's typically see their best performance when pushed hard.

Optane tries to improve throughput at the lower end which is typically what we consider average consumer use.

Other than additional storage, for which there are numerous options that don't require modification, you'd not really gain anything in terms of theoretical performance. At worst nothing you'd even notice.

Don't understand the video ram question.

OK. Thanks for that explanation of the Optane. Makes sense.
I don't know what I was thinking when I posted about the video ram. Of course it will work.
Thanks all for the input. I hope to get a new computer today.

When I was younger I would have done the same thing. Now though it is easier to put it on credit card and know that if it doesn't work I can take it back.

I make them bring the unit to my house and stress test it before payment
programs like CPU-Z will do that and tell you all the bits inside also

avg about 1/2 the cost for better then box store stuff

Find a friend that can build a PC boot drive on a USB stick. When turned on, the PC should look for that drive and boot up. Once "up" check the directory to see if you can access what should have been the old "C" drive. If that works, just transfer the desired files to the USB stick drive. Good luck!