Win XP machine going bad

[réjean]

Hi all!My wife's computer ( Intel Penthium 1 Ghz, 512 MB SDRAM ) started acting up a few days ago. First it was telling me the 2nd HD ( 40 GB) was failing and I just ignored it since we are using it as a backup mostly. Then yesterday ypon rebooting it was the 1st HD ( 40 GB ) also that was going bad. I opened it and gently pushed the ribbons in and both HD started working again. We let it run all night and it was working fine until an hour or so ago but then my wife got a black screen of death. I rebooted using the Reset button and I got the message about the 2 HDs failing so I opened the case again and did the same thing as last night but now when I reboot I get the initial beep but also a "tarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaa kind of sound. Both the processor fan and the Power Supply fan are working. So is it the processor, the mother board, the memory sticks, the power supply going bad or as my wife suggested the battery.I am tempted to try just one stick of memory at a time but I don't want to make the matter worse.Any suggestion!P.S. This is a great opportunity for me to introduce her to Linux since she is leaving in a week for a few months ( her mother is dying ).

[kkehoe]

Since your first indication of trouble was the second drive, I would pull the data cable off and see if the machine will function at that point.

[réjean]

Great suggestion kkehoe!It just happened that I took the machine for a walk ( took it upstairs and my Linux box downstairs in case all we could use was the Linux box and upon rebooting Windoze did a checkfdisk (or checkfs, whatever) then rebooted with the message about the 2nd HD failing but my wife is now using it). She said her machine was beeping for a couple weeks ( off an on ) until last week ( which happened to be when we started ignoring the 2nd HD; bypassing it by clicking on F1 at boot time ). We'll see how it goes from now on.

[b2cm]

If those are SMART messages, your disk are failing. Disconnect both hard disk and restart to confirm. If the computer boots fine, connect the disks (secondary IDE), one at a time, to your linux machine and copy all the files you need to save (and burn these files to a CD-R or DVD+/-R). If the 'taraaa' sound is still there even if the two disks aren't, items to first inspect are motherboard, fans and power supply unit.

[goretsky]

Hello,Could one (or more) of the fans failed? If so, that could have caused components such as the second hard disk drive to overheat, and the beeping noise may have been a thermal sensor on the computer's motherboard.You may wish to check the inside of the chassis to verify there is not dust or debris blocking the inlets and exhaust ports and that all fans inside the computer spin freely when tapped gently with a finger.If any of the fans do not move smoothly or have seized up, they can be cleaned or replaced.RegardsAryeh Goretsky

[FuzzButt]

Well if it is a Piii 1Ghz then it is 3 or 4 years old if not 5. My guess is that could be a fan making the odd noise. The bearings don't hold up for ever. You obviously need at least 1 hard drive replaced. Don't ignore those errors. A friend of mine did for a few weeks then one day he lost 80GB in data that I was not able to recover a single byte of. My parents PC was doing odd things before Christmas and is still broke. I ended up getting the guts replaced with Core 2 Duo stuff and a pair of 250GB WD's in a raid 0 mirror configuration. I was able to copy everything off the old PC but I still have work to do to get it (the old one) going again.