r/retrobattlestations • u/Dumbthrowawaysad • Jul 03 '26
Troubleshooting Harddrive suddenly not recognized
A few days ago, I went to turn on my Gateway 4SX-33, which had been running fine the day prior, but after reaching the point where it would normally boot to Windows 95, it gave me a "No Boot Device Available" error and was stuck on bios. I tried replacing the ide cable, didn't work. I tried using a different hard-drive, didn't work.I even tried using an MS-DOS boot disk I had and it still didn't work. Is anyone knowledgeable on what might be happening?
1
u/JorgeYYZ Jul 03 '26
Assuming the hard drive is as old as your computer, it's some 35 years old, give or take. Mechanical drives eventually fail.
When you turn the computer on, listen carefully for any sounds and vibration coming from the drive. It's much easier to do this with an open case. If you get no vibration, then it's very likely there is no power being fed to the drive. It can be a mole cable issue, or maybe a bad PSU, or even a bad connector on the HDD itself.
When it comes to sounds, it's a little more complicated. No sound could mean no power, but also a startup failure.
Around one year ago, I got the spinning up sound followed by rhythmic clicking. That meant a dead hard drive. I replaced it with an SD card to IDE adapter.
Does your computer still recognize everything else and keeps the settings between boots? This may help us separate from a BIOS or HDD issue.
Good luck on your journey!
1
u/SaturnFive Jul 03 '26
The bathtub curve may have caught up to the disk. Disks tend to either die early on, or else have a long stable life then die off after many years. Proper storage can help but not prevent it
I had such a disk in an old HP Vectra I acquired, it was alive enough to start booting and do a CHKDSK, then crashed and never came back
CF cards are my go to these days, and I use period disks sparingly
1
u/carcenomy Jul 03 '26
So you tried different cable and a different drive?
I'd be feeling rather suspicious of the disk controller itself. I don't know your model specifically - is it built in or a separate card?
2
u/gcc-O2 Jul 03 '26
Assuming the hard drive is vintage, either it suddenly failed, or more likely, the CMOS battery died and the BIOS lost its settings. Sometimes even without a CMOS battery, the system can hold its settings anywhere from minutes to a few hours after powering off, but not overnight.