Disappearing Hard Drive

The easiest possibility is that your IDE cable is coming loose because the cable is old, or pulled taught inside your case. Since the drive is found sometimes, I would definitely be optimistic about the drive, and try a brand new IDE cable that's plenty long for the mounting point you've chosen for your drive. I'm not certain that this could lead to a memory dump, but a large amount of data in the memory, awaiting transfer to a HDD that suddenly disappears, might have that effect. Also, since you reconnected the drive and "Windows detected previous attempt at install and started installation again from start" it looks like your drive is functioning properly, until it ceases to be recognized. If not the cable, it would probably have to be glitchy BIOS, but that should screw you consistently, not occasionally. I hope it is that simple, I could use the points!

You have symptoms characteristic of drive on-board electronics failure. Recognized intermittently, then not at all after controller fails completely.

So, my best guess is a failed hard disk.

Dalton

Although it sounds like a faulty IDE cable, be sure to check if the power conector isn't loose, and do try another one on the other rail, just in case there is a problem with the cable itself.

Another problem could be a week PSU (i've encountered this problem several times).

Worst thing is a failing hard drive. Go to the maker's webpage and download their diagnostic utility to check the drive. If it is failing just consider yourself lucky you didn't loose any vital informations.

Sory for the bad english :(
GooD LucK! :D

I am leaning towards the flakey hard drive scenario. If you have a known good PC in the shop, try adding it as a second drive and see if you have similar issues. Once installed you can run DISKCHECKUP (it is a shareware program that will interigate the drive logs if the disk utilizes S M A R T technology..) to see if there have been any issues. Good Luck.

-Norm

During the intermittint wiring checks, I did exchange ribbon cables for new ones. I tried different Primary and Secondary IDE and jumper configurations, but as I mentioned, it always came back to the original configuration.
The drive is not very old. 80 gig, by a well known manufacturer.

Definitely sounds like the hard drive is your # 1 issue. Swap drive to know good PC and run Drive MFR diagnostics on it. If everyhing passes, then look to updating the BIOS then check the system Power supply.

Well the first thing you should try is the IDE lead some of the early 133 + IDE drives had a connector that forced the plug out while running they where a real pain and you needed special IDE leads for them with slightly smaller plugs.

The second and much more important thing is you should visit the makers web site and download a HDD tester utility and run it generally from a DOS prompt so you'll need a 98 Boot Disk to get into DOS and the insert the floppy that you have made with the drive tester on it and run it if there is a problem with the drive that will tell what is happening depending on the maker. Seagate has a good HDD tester but it only works if there is at least one Seagate drive in the system so if it isn't a Seagate HDD you'll have to use the one that the maker of the HDD provides.

AS far as IDE leads go the Cobra series of IDE lead by Antec seems to work perfectly with these older drives as I've used them in the past to solve the same problem where the lead appears to be perfect but the drive keeps disappearing. If you just push the connector into the HDD it will quite often reappear on the next boot but it can work its way out in a very short time frame.

I've seen some people glue these connectors in with Super Glue but it is not my recommended course of action as if the leads goes faulty you loose the HDD as well because you can not get the plug out of the drive. This was something very common with the ATA 100/133 PCI cards that where used a while ago on the slower M'Board the lead would part way work its way out of the socket on the PCI card and you would then loose the drive.

I would try installing the drive into another PC. If it fails in the other PC (set the drive as a slave) it is the drive itself. If it does not fail, then update the BIOS of the original PC. You may also want to try a known good drive in the unit as well. If it is recognized and runs for a little while, then you will know that you do have a bad drive. You may also want to go into the BIOS and check the drive settings. Instead of AUTO select for your drive, set it manually to your drives specifications. This would also be an indicator for a BIOS update from the PC manufacturer. Good luck!

One other thing you might check. Is your BIOS date being reset to default? If it is, then your CMOS battery is caput and I recommend replacing it. Most PC batteries are just dimple CR2032 watch batteries that you can get at any grocery store. I have seen them fail as soon as 6 months. Hope this helps!!!

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