Computer will not boot after trying to diagnose HD [dell 8400] [blue screens]
Q: I have a Dell 8400. Recently I started getting a lot of blue screens and my HD was a loud clicking noise. It would not boot to windows so I tried running a diag. Something was definitely wrong with the HD.
In the process when I plugged the power back on, I got no picture on the screen and the fans on the power supply and the CPU went crazy is very fast and hard (not at all normal ) 0.
So I fry the motherboard somehow?
Re:Originally posted by: scott
Originally posted by: guy
Took it to a guy who knows more about computers than me. Apparently something went wrong with the video card. As soon as he took that out the computer went to the BIOS fine.
That's really weird, never heard one like that before.
If you figure out what the "something" is that went wrong with your video card, it'd be interesting if you'd please post it here. Maybe I could learn something from that.
Just curious; Had you been attempting to overclock your video card, or had you recently updated its driver?
I hadn't even touched the video card. The best I can assume is I discharged some static electricity when I opened it up onto the video card but even that I can't believe.
As far as for the warranty, the OEM thing makes sense. I guess I owned myself by not getting the longer warranty on the Dell. Lesson learned.
Re:Originally posted by: guy
Took it to a guy who knows more about computers than me. Apparently something went wrong with the video card. As soon as he took that out the computer went to the BIOS fine.
That's really weird, never heard one like that before.
If you figure out what the "something" is that went wrong with your video card, it'd be interesting if you'd please post it here. Maybe I could learn something from that.
Just curious; Had you been attempting to overclock your video card, or had you recently updated its driver?
Re:I only had a 1 year warranty from Dell and that expired already. But I'm sure Hitachi gives longer warranties on their drives? Or because it was in a factory system I have to go through Dell?
There's no warranty on that drive anymore. Hitachi sells those OEM drives to mfgs for cheap and the mfg assumes all warranty…..which is now expired. 
Re:Originally posted by: scott
Were you able to run the diagnostic test of your hard drive that's provided by the hdd manufacturer, or else provided by Dell?
If you got any results at all from whatever diagnostics you ran, please describe.
Can you boot into your BIOS?
Can you boot into DOS so as to save your data? If able, then use the xcopy command & try to copy data over to something like a thumb drive or other external backup drive plugged in via usb or firewire connection. If you're on a network, copy to external location on network. Save that data!
Do you still have any warranty coverage on your Dell 8400?
Prior to the BSOD's, had you just installed an update of the hdd driver?
Liklihood is that you'll need a new hard drive, but save that data if at all possible.
Took it to a guy who knows more about computers than me. Apparently something went wrong with the video card. As soon as he took that out the computer went to the BIOS fine. The HD was still messed so I'm trying to recover what I can off of that.
I only had a 1 year warranty from Dell and that expired already. But I'm sure Hitachi gives longer warranties on their drives? Or because it was in a factory system I have to go through Dell?
I don't know, it was weird to have the HD fail and then the video card go out of nowhere.
Re:Were you able to run the diagnostic test of your hard drive that's provided by the hdd manufacturer, or else provided by Dell?
If you got any results at all from whatever diagnostics you ran, please describe.
Can you boot into your BIOS?
Can you boot into DOS so as to save your data? If able, then use the xcopy command & try to copy data over to something like a thumb drive or other external backup drive plugged in via usb or firewire connection. If you're on a network, copy to external location on network. Save that data!
Do you still have any warranty coverage on your Dell 8400?
Prior to the BSOD's, had you just installed an update of the hdd driver?
Liklihood is that you'll need a new hard drive, but save that data if at all possible.
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Tags: blue screens, dell 8400