Optiplex won't see hard drive

Have a friend with an older (~2008) Dell Optiplex 755.  Dual core Pentium E2220 CPU, Intel 035 Express chipset (ICH9D0), Radeon HD 2400 video, 2 GB DDR2 RAM, 4 SATA connectors.  And a dead hard drive.

This is the second dead hard drive.  The original was a SATA 160, which was replaced several months ago with a 2 TB Seagate.  In its current iteration, the machine was running Windows 7 pro.  It was a clean install, and had run quite smoothly.

The 2 TB drive has seemingly quit working.  The machine would start to boot and then blue screen and start over.  Various diagnostics said the drive was either bad or missing entirely.

I installed a used (smaller) drive in the machine for test purposes.  The drive shows up in the BIOS (as does the Seagate), but no Windows install program from XP Pro SP3 thru Win 7 pro will recognize there is even a drive there. UBCD4Win booted from the DVD does not detect it, either. I'm certain the drive is good.  I even tried formatting it in another machine and then putting it back in the Optiplex.  I have tried connecting the drive to different SATA connectors (which I turned on in the BIOS) to no avail.  The SATA DVD is recognized and the machine will boot from it.  

When plugged into a Windows 7 machine via USB, I can see both partitions on the Seagate ("System Reserved" and "Local Disk").  I can see the contents of the System Reserved partition, but attempting to view the Local Disk partition locks up Windows Explorer.  My previous experience with connecting it directly to an XP machine was that it kept the machine from booting, but connecting it via USB after the machine was booted would let me see the drive and its partitions, but not their contents.

At this point, I'm less concerned about the existing drive than I am about the inability of the Optiplex to see any drive.

I've looked at all the BIOS settings and they seem to be set the way they should.  Indeed, the BIOS recognizes the hard drives connected to the machine.

I've run out of things to try.  I need some new ideas.  TIA.

CJon

Try only connecting one drive, don't have multiple drives attached.

The second hdd should not be included in the BIOS boot order, so the computer will not try to boot from it if the first device in the boot order doesn't start.

If you are getting a BSOD when you start the computer I would suspect that this is a problem with the operating system.

What diagnostic tools did you run?

Try booting to the Advanced Boot Options (this is where Safe Mode is located).  If you can boot to this select Disable automatic restart on system failure.  Then reboot normally.  The BSOD which had previously been flashing by will now appear.  Post what the error is.

Did you check to make sure that the data and power cables were properly attached?

Edited by dc3, 22 October 2015 - 09:40 AM.

Sparklestar & dc3

Thanks for your responses.

I only have one drive attached (at a time).

Since there is no operating system on the (new) drive, it follows that this is not an operating system problem.  The machine sees the drive in BIOS, but will not mount it to install the OS.

I will reinstall the old drive and try to disable automatic restart and see if I can read the BSOD.

I'll do it this evening when I get home.

Thanks,  CJon

 The 2 TB drive has seemingly quit working.  The machine would start to boot and then blue screen and start over. 

That is a problem with the operating system.

What diagnostics did you run on this hdd.  Please post the name of the programs.

What type of media are you using to install the operating system.  If this is a disc you may need to change the boot order in the BIOS so that the optial drive is the first device and the hdd the second device.

Edited by dc3, 22 October 2015 - 02:18 PM.

In BIOS see if the mode is set to RAID Autodetect / ATA mode.  As you can see from this Dell thread even getting XP to run AHCI was a chore. I am not sure why Windows 7 would not have the AHCI drivers included for the controller. As you can see from intel's data sheet a Matrix Storage Manager drive is available for the 82801IO/ICH9DO but I could not find anything for Windows 7. 

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/io/io-controller-hub-9-datasheet.html

http://ark.intel.com/products/31899/Intel-82801IO-IO-Controller

OK, So I connected a known good HD and was able to a test install Win 7 to it.  (Obviously the machine saw it...)
I connected the seagate and the machine saw it, but any attempt to access the main partition results in a lockup.  

Since I can't access that partition, I cant run diagnostics on it.  I assume it is toast.

At this point, I think we're going to get a new HD and do a clean install and go from there.

Finally got that partition to open in the disk management section of administrative tools.  I note it is identified as RAW instead of NTFS.  Can somebody comment on the significance of that?

It means something went wrong with the drive and the partition data is lost/scrambled or something like that.

Assuming you do not want to recover any data from the drive, I would run SeaTools for Dos (it's an iso you burn to a bootable cd) to try to fix the drive.

What is RAW file system - http://www.raw-file-system.com/

CHKDSK error message - The type of the filesystem is RAW - http://www.z-a-recovery.com/art-raw-filesystem.htm

Louis

Open the Disk Manager, right click on this partition letter and select Format.

Follow the prompts to format the partition to NTFS.

Edited by dc3, 23 October 2015 - 09:05 AM.

Thanks for the suggestions.  The 2 T drive is one of the Seagates with the high failure rate.  I'm going to try to reformat it and see what happens, but I'm thinking replacement with a WD or an HGST.