The PC I used from 2007-2010 was sitting in my attic. I deleted most of my CoH stuff from my current PC a year after the closure but it's likely on the HD in the old PC but it requires a Windows XP boot disc (I can't find my backups for the life of me) or I can't get it up and running.
Am I better scrapping it? Removing the HD and putting it in another PC? Finding a boot disc by other means?
I'm afraid to take it to Best Buy - there has to be reason I had it in moth balls (dead disc, viruses, etc).
No need for a boot disc. Put the HD in another PC.
Thanks. Looking around the only discs I found were the original CoH release disc, the CoV 4-disc set and my pre-order CoV disc (was fun seeing trailers for TR and AA again...). At least I got to read through the two CoH comics (digital) again!
If you are just missing like a password, you could also use a Linux boot disc. It will allow you to change the root (admin) password... or any other for that matter.
Aggelakis solution will work too.
I believe the disc is dead, Jim. I'm better off selling it off for parts and buying another PC. At power up it says HD Disc not found.
Which means this thread is pointless and I've already salvaged the HD... carry on... nothing to see here but my noobery.
Quote from: Rejolt on September 14, 2014, 07:07:24 PM
I believe the disc is dead, Jim. I'm better off selling it off for parts and buying another PC. At power up it says HD Disc not found.
Which means this thread is pointless and I've already salvaged the HD... carry on... nothing to see here but my noobery.
It could be the hard drive that is faulty, or it could be the old computer that is faulty and unable to spin up or read the disk. I would put the hard drive into a known working computer and retesting before giving up on it.
(https://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c108/Derek_Gonsoulin/IMG_0242_zps8eb16243.jpg)
This is a picture of the old dust bucket. Hoping a picture makes up for what my words lack.
And another angle:
(https://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c108/Derek_Gonsoulin/IMG_0243_zpse30a589c.jpg)
I'm about as tech illiterate as they come. My keeping these parts is almost pointless. I may see if anyone here needs a fan, parts, etc. just mailing them to folks here that could use them.
Jolty, did you pull the HD and plug it into your other PC? I'm seeing an old standard ribbon cable so you might not be able to do it without someone a few more gadgets. Particularly if you have a new PC with a different data cable.
Is it just me or is your hard drive not plugged in? Or did you pull the cables to get a better photo?
Anyway, as was suggested, take it out of your old PC and put it into your current PC. It should show as just an additional drive.
Best guess is something failed on start up, I already tried to recover the hd or it failed in the first place. I'll keep looking and see if it turns up
Update: took your advice and plugged the hd in and it says "A disc read error occurred"
Quote from: Rejolt on September 14, 2014, 09:34:32 PM
Best guess is something failed on start up, I already tried to recover the hd or it failed in the first place. I'll keep looking and see if it turns up
Update: took your advice and plugged the hd in and it says "A disc read error occurred"
Were you trying to boot from that HD? If you were, don't and try it as a secondary drive on your system. That way if it's the OS that has an error on it you can go around it to get your files.
If the HD is an older one, you may have to jumper it as a slave, especially if it thought it was a master before. Don't have to do that to the newer drives, (as far as I know) because they are just a little bit smarter, and handle it internally.
-Fuegocito
Don't do away with that hard drive. It's clearly SATA which means it's jumperless. First thing I would do is try to boot to it in your new machine, that way if your current system finds a fault with it you've eliminated your entire other PC as the cause of the problem. You also don't have to go digging for cables if you master it in the new one. Take the cables out of your new hard drive and plug them into that one then boot up. If the disc doesn't spin up you have a cool new paperweight for your desk. If it does spin up then your system should take you immediately to the BIOS to configure a new drive and then probably won't boot to XP as it's most likely a 32-bit copy being that old. If your new system sees it in the BIOS then pull the cables from your old system and use them to put it in your new PC as a second drive. Since it won't boot to the XP it won't interfere with your boot process and you can retrieve all of your files off of it. A second hard drive also comes in handy for storing a backup of your current primary, or just stack it with nudies like I do mine!
Quote from: Ryo Kinsaru on September 15, 2014, 03:11:17 PM
Don't do away with that hard drive. It's clearly SATA which means it's jumperless. First thing I would do is try to boot to it in your new machine, that way if your current system finds a fault with it you've eliminated your entire other PC as the cause of the problem. You also don't have to go digging for cables if you master it in the new one. Take the cables out of your new hard drive and plug them into that one then boot up. If the disc doesn't spin up you have a cool new paperweight for your desk. If it does spin up then your system should take you immediately to the BIOS to configure a new drive and then probably won't boot to XP as it's most likely a 32-bit copy being that old. If your new system sees it in the BIOS then pull the cables from your old system and use them to put it in your new PC as a second drive. Since it won't boot to the XP it won't interfere with your boot process and you can retrieve all of your files off of it. A second hard drive also comes in handy for storing a backup of your current primary, or just stack it with nudies like I do mine!
I swear I did the /smile and nod ... Thing halfway through reading this. Thanks for the help. I'll run it by a friend who is a little more tech savvy than me.
on the old dust bucket see if the local library or old folks home or y needs a pc that still working minus the hard drive. also see if there any non profits near you looking for computer parts for low income families.
Clone your Hard drive.....I cloned mine and it's a nice feeling to have data backed up.
cutting through all the technobabble, it's been my experience over fifteen years of repairing and refurbishing PCs, that when a computer says "no boot device found" that 95 times out of a hundred, it's because the hard drive has failed.
you can try the freezer trick... place the hard drive inside a zipper bag, freeze it for twenty-four hours, and then try to fire it up. This can sometimes give you a few minutes to an hour to recover any files, but it is a temporary fix at best. if you NEED data off of the drive, there are services such as Ontrack that you can mail the hard drive to who will try to recover the data, but these services typically start at $250 and go up from there. (quickly)
less likely culprits of the "no boot device found" error are that the power supply is failing and no longer pumping out the voltage needed to spin the disk, or that the SATA channels on the main board or CPU chip have gone bad. Both of these can be ruled out by plugging the drive into a different machine or an external housing and seeing if it will operate. Cables are almost never the cause unless you've been mucking about inside the case beforehand, in which case it probably came unplugged or got pinched. And this is all but unheard of in SATA cables, which are very robust by design.
I don't see any BGH errors, so go ahead and plug the hd into another machine and give it a whirl. worst case scenario you're back where you started.
Quote from: Eoraptor on September 16, 2014, 04:54:09 PM
it's been my experience over fifteen years of repairing and refurbishing PCs, that when a computer says "no boot device found" that 95 times out of a hundred, it's because the hard drive has failed.
I have never once gotten this error and been able to salvage the drive except by extreme. absurd measures and then only a smidgen of data. It's why the number one thing anyone can do is back up your data. Not once, but twice.
A local disc backup and then a remote web backup. With your original that's three copies. It's the only way to be sure.
So what if the HDD can't be booted from? Doesn't mean it's completely gone.
Buy a USB hard drive enclosure . Install the hard drive there. Copy whatever you need from it. :)
In that picture your drive is not plugged in, the sata cable is loose and so is the power cable.
You can also often buy an identical drive and replace the controller card and fix it. I helped someone once save their thesis that took 2 years to write by this method. When it booted and worked they were jumping up and down.
Quote from: Ironwolf on September 23, 2014, 08:24:50 PM
In that picture your drive is not plugged in, the sata cable is loose and so is the power cable.
You can also often buy an identical drive and replace the controller card and fix it. I helped someone once save their thesis that took 2 years to write by this method. When it booted and worked they were jumping up and down.
Good one IW, didn't think about the controller card.... and I guess his thesis wasn't on data security. :)
Quote from: Ankhammon on September 23, 2014, 11:32:18 PM
Good one IW, didn't think about the controller card.... and I guess his thesis wasn't on data security. :)
Controller card swaps can work, but it requires a lot of technical knowhow and a very clean room to do that sort of work. plus, you have to have the luck to find the exact drive hardware for the donor board.