Alpha Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 The other day I was fixing the fan in my computer and I laid the computer flat on the floor. The problem is that when I turned it on at that time, I got a "Disk boot faliure". I don't understand why, especially since it's a fairly new hard drive and I just formatted Windows XP on it. So I rebooted the PC and it loaded XP fine. It hasn't happened since and I ended up fixing the fan and I also changed the hard drive cable for the hell of it. It's a Maxtor DiamondPlus 10. So I downloaded Hitachi Drive Fitness (a popular hard drive diagnostic software) and ran some tests on it and it had no errors. I also ran Maxtor PowerMax and it says the hard drive has passed all tests and is certified error free. I'm just so confused and a little puzzled on what to do since I'm not sure to install Windows XP again, buy a new hard drive, call Maxtor or what. The other thing is that in the BIOS I have it set to read from the CD-Rom drive first. Could it be possible that since the computer was layed flat that it tried reading from the CD-Rom drive and it's reporting that failure? Or would it be a different error message? Overall, I'm confused, and tired. Help me out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 Wish I could help you... I guess a cable was loose or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mooney Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 Sumthin like that happened to me... kinda. I put new RAM in my box and turned my PC on, and it told me that Windows was not installed. So I tried to reinstall Windows, but it said it could not find a hard drive. I looked back in and found that I had accidentaly unplugged my hard drive from the power source. I plugged it back in and everything worked fine, even my new RAM! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken_cinder Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 For future reference, it's not healthy for mechanical drives to be on their sides when running. It CAN damage the platters.Optical drives are not an issue with damaging anything other than the discs themselves, but enter the 360...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted June 23, 2006 Share Posted June 23, 2006 I have some compaq C500 computers here, and the hard drive is mounted on its side, behind the power switch. They have proven to be exceptionally reliable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryuken Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 i was about to say the same thing. i've seen hdd installed on its side, in some dell pc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ken_cinder Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 Nobody ever said Compaq was smart........they make garbage computers with their own screwed up custom hardware in it, that usually can't be replaced with off the shelf stuff without causing some sort of incompatibility with another cheap POS component in the PC.I have a strong dislike for Compaq, can you tell?Anyway, there are drives designed for special mounting requirements. The average drive, if you look in the manual (or even read a manufacturers website support area) are not intended for vertical mounting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 :shrugs: We have used compaqs at work for years and they are very good, and everything works just fine. I can't speak for the ones intended for home use though, the only one I ever looked at (at a friends house) was rather useless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
i l l m a t i c Posted June 24, 2006 Share Posted June 24, 2006 maybe a boot.ini problem? this happened to me acouple times (installed a new burner, dusting off the mobo, etc..) use the xp disk, go to the recovery console, then bootcfg /scan it to find the windows install...hopefully it finds it...then use /rebuild to set that as the active partition Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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