I hope I am at the right place here at this forum; if not, hopefully someone will correct my course.

Last year I bought a Seagate barracude ES 750 GHb SATA HDD from an ebay dealer I have delt with in the past. hard drive worked great untill a week ago when it stopped booting to Windows from startup. I tried booting with the setuo DVD to repair the OS to no avail.
When I turn on my computer, it boots through the normal start up screen and then......nothing; black screen with a small blinking curser in the top left of the screen. No failure notices, no blue screen of death, just a dark screen.

This is my computer: ASUS P5GV-MX motherboard with an Intel 64 pentium 4 3000 cpu. The cpu is a 64 bit, but when I first got it it had a 32 bit windows OS running. I have 2 GHb (2 X 1 GHb sticks ) of memory installed. A SONY DVD Burner/Player DVD and a LITE ON CD Burner/player. No floppy disk installed. Motherboard is up to date with current firmware installed.

the Seagate Barracude ES is a SATA HDD rated at 750 Gigabyte capacity. the model number is: ST3750641NS, firmware version: 4AEN. I bought this HDD new thru a dealer on eBay I deal with regularly last year. It came sealed in a static bag in the original box sealed.

I installed a new Windows 7 Ultimate 64 bit OS about 2 weeks ago. I was given a DVD (copy) setup disk with the win 7 OS from a computer friend of mine who has since gone missing and I cannot reach him for his assistance. After reading the setup file info (instructions for installing win 7 Ultimate 64 bit....if win XP Pro 64 bit was already installed on HDD) I installed the win 7 OS from a hard boot and everything went according to the instructions.

I am not a 'newbie' when it comes to computers, but in the 12 years I have used them I have never had this happen. No indication of trouble or anything. I am stumpt and in need of input.

Anyone had this happen to them? if so, what is the solution I have no info yet on the new OS install so re formatting the drive is not an issue.

help?

Failed or failing Drives that contain data that needs to be recovered is discussed here

1) Is the drive detecting in the BIOS(properly with correct size) ?
Check and reseat the power and data cables .



2) Are you indicating about the POST screen or the Starting windows screen when you refer to normal start up screen ?

You can check your drive using tools like MHDD, if you suspect the problem is with the drive.As you have told that you do not have important data in the drive you can test the drive with MHDD and if its ok, repartition it and use it.

Yes to your first reply.....I have made it a habit to always check before and after a new OS install and then once a week or so. never a hint of a problem from the first reboot till it stopped.

As for the second reply, I can never remember terminology so my 'start up' is usually what you would call the 'bios' or 'post' start. Soon as the 'post' has finished, there is a pause and then windows starts it thing; and thats where mine has stopped.....right after 'post' finishes and before windows 7 splash screen begins.

Last night after I posted here I thought I would give it a try again.....and it booted right to win 7! I had unplugged all the cords, reset all the cables inside the computer case (its a Geeks cheepo case...$19) and then left it till this morning. Plugged in everything and up she went, just like before.....I am totally not believing this, but as long as it is still running, I aint complaining. I did get a reply from the retailer I got the win 7 dvd disk from last night; he strongly advised me to get a quality case ans toss the Geeks one. Something to do with grounds and continuity, flow dynamics and all that geeky jargon.

I am going up to Frys Electronics this next weekend to just that.

....maybe thats what the problem was.....who knows. thanks for the advise...

Get a good power supply(even if its costly)and a cabinet which have additional fans at the Hard disk bays.
Good luck.

And how to take care of your hard disk

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Barracuda- ... d-p/187450