Black Screen Of Death

[orcutt989]

4th Master Hard Disk: SMART Command Failed
Press F1 to resume.

This message I recive when just doing totally normal things on my computer. The A:/ drive will suddenly start making a loud clicking noise like it is trying to read a disk, Windows locks up. And then a black screen with that message appears and i am forced to hard boot the computer. Sometimes when that happens,before Windows loads, another black screen comes up asking me for a boot device forcing me to restart over and over again until just out of frustration i leave the computer off for a little while, and then use my telekenesis to tell Windows to load. And it does and now i am able to type this message. Not 2 minutes ago i was typing this and suddenly it happened and i had to write this message all over again. Why is my computer doing this? It even does it when nobody is at the computer. :helpsmile:

[tesco]

could be something wrong with ur drive.

during boot does ur computer say anything about your hard drives? for example, on boot mine says teh model of teh drive then says smart status: OK. does yours mention smart at all?

smart tells u ahead of time if ur drive is gonna fail.

there are also windows apps u can run to check the smart status but i can't think of any atm.

[orcutt989]

No, my computer is not like that. When I boot the computer just Gateway's logo appears and a status bar on the bottom goes from left to right. Sometimes it staggers but that is about it. No status though.

[tesco]

oh, ic, well ill find u a smart accessing windows program to see if anything is the matter.

hold on a sec.

edit: i have no clue what to search for, so i can't really find anything.

but i do know that speedfan (http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php) accesses smart so maybe u can find some problems with that.

[accat13]

A quick suggestion would be to quickly back up any important info. in case of HD failure...Or accidently deleteing a partition like some fool(lost 15gigs ouch)

[MicroScreen2]

you know on bios splash screens theres normally a button to press to see what the pc is doing. try pressing tab or f1 or something. cant remember which button. evn though i do it all the time on school pcs :blink:


or try takng the floppy drive out. no-one uses them anymore anyway :rolleyes:

[freak]

Did you scan for viruses it could possably be that. that is if you can keep your computer running long enough to scan. If not i would just backup everything u need and just reformat your computer and if it still does it after that then its a hardware issue...

[Sasage]

What about trying to boot without your disc or floppy drive?

[SingaBoiy]

Originally posted by MicroScreen2@30 July 2004 - 17:51
you know on bios splash screens theres normally a button to press to see what the pc is doing. try pressing tab or f1 or something. cant remember which button. evn though i do it all the time on school pcs :blink:


or try takng the floppy drive out. no-one uses them anymore anyway :rolleyes:
Its tab.

My parents pc is having a prob similar to this. Not exactly the same but close. I know I unplugged it once and put one of my drives in to transfer some files. Then when I put her secondary back in it was working.

But then problem came back and hasnt gone away.

[atiVidia]

Originally posted by SingaBoiy@31 July 2004 - 03:24
But then problem came back and hasnt gone away.
with every drive u use?

sounds like its a cable issue. that or all ur hard drives got screwed over.

[lynx]

Judging by the fact that if you leave it a while, and it then works only to come back again, my guess is that you've got an temperature related problem.

It is not necessarily your drive which is overheating, it could be any central system component involved with the IDE interface (for example the chipset), but I would think it possible that you would get other problems too in that case.

And it isn't necessarily overheating. A "dry" solder joint can become loose as temperatures rise and can cause intermittent problems, but they can be impossible to find and can occur at normal running temps.

Of course, if this problem happens from cold (or just after) then this idea is probably wrong.

[orcutt989]

Originally posted by Sasage@31 July 2004 - 04:46
What about trying to boot without your disc or floppy drive?
I dont need a boot disk, when i get to that screen i simply shut the computer off and keep attempting to boot.




Judging by the fact that if you leave it a while, and it then works only to come back again, my guess is that you've got an temperature related problem.

It is not necessarily your drive which is overheating, it could be any central system component involved with the IDE interface (for example the chipset), but I would think it possible that you would get other problems too in that case.

And it isn't necessarily overheating. A "dry" solder joint can become loose as temperatures rise and can cause intermittent problems, but they can be impossible to find and can occur at normal running temps.

Of course, if this problem happens from cold (or just after) then this idea is probably wrong.



Hmm, i was thinking maybe temperature related. Thanks everyone. The air conditioner is about a meter away from my computer and we really didnt have it on last night, and now we do and i havent had the problem, so that might be it.

[zapjb]

The clicking sound plus the other symptoms tell me it's imminent HDD failure.

[lynx]

Originally posted by zapjb@1 August 2004 - 01:13
The clicking sound plus the other symptoms tell me it's imminent HDD failure.
Read it again, the clicking noise is from the floppy drive.

[zapjb]

:lol: Yup I got it wrong. Kneejerk reaction.

[orcutt989]

Alright, the computer finally stopped recognizing my hdd. My mom got this brillliant Idea to vacuum out the power supply for the hell of it, and nowq the computer wont even turn on. Oh well, we are getting a really good dell i put together. P4 3mhz, 512 ram, 128mb PCI express ATI video, 116 gb hdd, soundblaster audigy sound, xp professional. looks good..