Drives won't show up on startup screen, can't install OS. HDD or Motherboard problem?

[faervian]

There is a crappy old AMD pc (1.8'ish ghz single core), which I used in the living room for media purposes (movies etc...) until recently. But after getting a PS3, I rarely used it.

Couple of days ago, when I started it, it gave a missing dll error and didn't boot to OS. I thought a fresh OS install would be nice and painless... After a couple of failed Windows 7 install attempts, drives (not only hdd, dvd drive too) started to not showing up at startup screen (the one with the ram count), but when I enter bios and auto search them, it finds both ide drives easily.

Now, when I try to install Windows 7. It sees the hard drive as 120gb unallocated space, but also saying "Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computers hardware may not support booting to this disk." I can't make partitions or anything else in it with diskpart, because it's giving CRC error.

Instead of Windows 7, I tried my chances with Ubuntu, so I made a bootable usb drive, but it's also spamming an error (something like: Buffer I/O error on device sda logical block).

Anyone have an idea what can be the source of problems? I suspect it's the HDD or motherboard. Any help would be appreciated.

[artdrivers]

Re: Drives won't show up on startup screen, can't install OS. HDD or Motherboard prob

Did you try to clear cmos yet? Whats the temps? What are the computer components(MB,CPU,RAM,GPU,ect...) part numbers? Did you double check connections? Where do you have the connectors hooked up to. (SATA0) for HDD, SATA4 for DVD ect...) Have you cleaned out the dust?

[faervian]

Re: Drives won't show up on startup screen, can't install OS. HDD or Motherboard prob

I cleared the CMOS by removing the battery but didn't help at all. I don't think its temperature related, cuz it goes to win7 install screen without any problems but I'll still check it when I can, and post the values here. Computer is more than 5 years old and I don't remember all of the component details, but here's what I remember: 2x 512mb corsair memory, epox 9npa+ mainboard, leadtek geforce 6600gt video card, 420w Tagan psu. I double checked the connections, especially the PSU and IDE connections. I think mainboard is supporting SATA but both my drives are IDE (120gb Seagate HDD, NEC Dvd Writer), HDD on IDE 0, DVD on IDE 1, both masters.

The biggest problem is, like I said, computer can't find drives on startup, I have to enter the BIOS to find them everytime I start it (If I reset the computer, instead of shutting it down with power button, it keeps them though). I think this is indicating a problem with the drives or mainboard. And it wont let me install any OS to HDD.

[artdrivers]

Re: Drives won't show up on startup screen, can't install OS. HDD or Motherboard prob

Have you went into bios and load optimal defaults, then save and exit?

[faervian]

Re: Drives won't show up on startup screen, can't install OS. HDD or Motherboard prob

I loaded to the optimal defaults now, and I think system finds the drives by itself, but still can't be sure.

Temperature levels were ok for a dusty old PC I believe (cpu 41C, system 37C). And CPU is athlon 64 3000+. I thınk that covers all the missing info for your previous question.

Anyway, I tried to install win7 again, and it's still giving the same error (Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computers hardware may not support booting to this disk.) And like before, it lists the disk in diskpart, but when I type "create partition primary", it gives a data error (cyclic redundancy check). So I typed "detail disk", and it gave these results:

Disk ID: 00000000
Type: ATA
Status: Online
Path: 0
Target: 0
LUN ID: 0
Location Path: PCIROOT<0>#PCI<0600>#ATA<C000T00L00>
And some more info with "NO" value...

I don't know much about these things, but it sounds like a broken hard drive, right? If not, what else can it be? And thanks for your replies.

[artdrivers]

Re: Drives won't show up on startup screen, can't install OS. HDD or Motherboard prob

Yes it does sound like a broken HDD, but we can't be sure. Try running SeaTools. ↓Below↓ is a link for the SeaTools utility downloads. You may want to put the Hard drive in a working windows computer or try the DOS version. -- | Seagate