pc help needed urgently!

Right, my pc seems to be f**ked bigtime - last night, I tried to install the update patch for Doom3, but it said it couldn't detect an installation of the game - I checked where i KNEW IT WAS, but the folder (along with many others) had gone

 

My first thought was that its a virus or something, so I loaded up norton (fully upto-date) which found nothing

 

So I thought 'fuck this' and decided to re-install XP from the start... booted up with installation cd in drive, and started to go through installation process - XP setup then told me 'NO HARD DRIVE CAN BE DETECTED' - what the fuck is wrong with my pc?? there must be a hardrive in because im using this very pc right now as I type this... I have only had it 2 months, should I just phone dell and ask for a new pc or what?? Im not bothered about a format because all my important stuff seems to have been deleted along with the games

Very possible your Hard Drive faulty ....  you could check all the connectios, but check with |Dell first as this may void your warranty and you get left with nothing !!!!

yeah.... just tried ringing Dell, and suprise suprise - their tech support is monday to friday

chris ... goto download.com and get AVG antivirus .. it caught a whole bunch that norton never caught on mine .. i wont use norton now

Do you have a Serial ATA hard drive by any chance Hutch ?

no idea matey

 

How can I check?

actually, the system spec says 250GB SATA (7200rpm) Hard Drive

 

So i guess thats a yes... is that bad??

Having spoken to loads of people, I dont think its a virus tbh... think its a hardware or software fault somewhere

well there is ur first mistake... its a dell.

cant be that bad surely?? Reason I went for the Dimension 8400 was because of the awesome reviews it got

I always thought Dell's were pretty good bits of kit.

Chris take the back off and check all the cables which go into the hard disk are in fully, it might just be a loose cable.

well wingers mate who we see when we're in england used to work for deel and he always goes on about how all dell computers are made like shit. he absolutly hates them, only after working there though.

but wudnt that void ur warranty if u start fucking around with things?

a lot of the big companies build their machines using cheap/low grade parts, thats why they can sell them at stupidly low prices. i wouldn't say it was a loose connection though, you usually find that if a SATA drive isn't connected properly it just wont work at all. there's any number of things that could be causing it, but its hard to diagnose the problem without seeing it. have you noticed anything else thats wrong with the pc or is it just these missing files/folders?

tbh, if it was a loose cable, I dont think it would boot up...windows troubleshooting thingy says its working fine, which is what makes no sense

Just glad its all under warranty etc. Just hope their customer support is feeling nice enough to sort it all out :-)

everything seems to be fine tbh, just when i try to re-install xp from scratch it has a fit

If you reinstall XP from scratch, you need to install the SATA driver at the beginning of installation with a floppy - I think it sasys "press F6 now if you want to install 3rd party blah blah" - something to that effect anyway.

The previous problem of "No hard disc found" sounds a bit like a prtition problem, tho it could be anything previously mentioned as well . . .

Also, check your BIOS that it has auto detect for the hard drives or at least a listing for the Hard Drive. 

No its not bad having a SATA drive Chris, they are superior to IDE drives in every way. Its just that SATA came out after Windows XP and therefore wont have any drivers for your hard drive built into the XP installation so as Loki says, hit F6 when it requests you to install a 3rd party driver during the installion of XP, then put in the hard drive driver disc if you have one.

I thats the case, then perhaps it could just be that something has fucked up, rather then a permanent fault??

I dont have a disk for the sata thing anyway

You can try the manufacturer website, they will more than probably have some drivers for download.

u shbould have a floppy disk with the driver on it - installing XP is next to impossible without it - check the DELL website for any drivers.

It's the SATA controller driver you're looking for, not the hard drive itself.

http://support.euro.dell.com/uk/en/filelib/index.asp

 

type SATA into the 'description' box... which do you think I will need?  the hardware device properties for my hardrive says WDC WD2500JD-75HBB0 if thats any help

Serial ATA: Adaptec SATA HostRAID Controller, Driver, Windows 2000, Windows XP, English, Precision 470, 670, v.6.00.048, A01

This release contains SATA RAID driver Build 48 for Windows XP and Windows 2000. You must have a 3-1/2" blank formatted floppy disk for this driver to be copied on.

 

does this sound like it may be the right one???

yeah that sounds right - as long as it matches your Dell PC's description as well.