Expert: Brian Benosky - 5/8/2010

Question
Hi Brian, I was given an older Asus pc with XP-Pro. 1.32GHz 2 GIGs Ram...
I turned it on and got a BIOS Screen, so I exited out of that and PC ran good for two days. I unplugged PC and moved it to a different part of the house and turned it on and got a BIOS Screen again and this time a siren type of warning. The two HD's are not detected by BIOS. I am running a Linux CD now and Linux cant's locate HD's but like BIOS detects only the CD Player Drive. I switched cables on the HD's and even unplugged one HD at a time leaving only one HD to see if that would work and it does not. I changed a battery on the motherboard, but still no difference. Do you think the BIOS Chip is shot, even if it is still detecting the CD Drive? I'm at a loss here. Thank's for any advice!

Answer
Hi Mike

My guess is a failure of the hard drives, or the connections to them.  If you are able to run a Linux CD, then the rest of the computer is operational as far as RAM and CPU goes.  It's possible too that the power supply is not sending enough juice to the HD's.  But definitely troubleshoot the hard drives as your main culprit.  If you don't hear them spinning up, then swap them out with a different one to see if it's the drives or the PSU at fault.  If they are spinning up, take them to another machine to see if they are recognized.  If they are working in the other computer, then the problem lies with the motherboard, or the cables connecting them.  Let me know how you make out or if you need help troubleshooting further.

Brian