Boot disk failure, final recommendations

Hello gents, Well I think this problem is pretty cut and dry. But I always like going to you guys for a second (or first) opinion since you have always been incredibly helpful in the past. Basically my comp has been having some slower startups recently, I think from the noises (clicking and beeping) it's related to the HD. I have two 500GB seagate harddrives, one of them about a year old another about two years old. The older one, I believe, died a few months back due to a noted defect in the model and I've just sort of left it in there for now (been meaning to send it back but I'm too lazy to package it proper). So my comp has been working pretty fine otherwise while it's on. However, today I turned on my comp and no hard drives were detected. After verifying the DMI pool data, I get the message "boot disk failure" and it tells me to boot from a CD or something. In the BIOS the HDs don't seem to be getting detected, only the CD and DVD drives are. Also, when I try to use my Windows 7 CD to reinstall or repair, no hard drives can be found either. My power supply and motherboard are both from about 1 year back, when they were replaced by professionals following a case-related failure where both of them died. So I'm fairly sure the solution is "buy a new hard drive." Which I think is what I will try. If that doesn't work I think I can assume it's either mobo or PSU related which would really suck. This is my 3rd or so Seagate however and I'm fed up with them. From the common wisdom I had somehow come to believe that Seagate was a good HDD company but I have now had 3 drives die from them in almost no time at all. Maybe they've declined or something. Anyway what I'd like to ask from you guys, is: 1.) Is there anything else I should try to fix this thing? and 2.) Recommend me a long-lasting/durable hard drive made by a good company. I heard that high-volume drives have a propensity to fail more often. Is that true? What number should I be shooting for? The last time I visited microcenter I couldn't actually find a drive that was under 500 GB. In general I'm not trying to splurge on this new one. I don't particularly -need- a lot of HD space, although I would like at least a 250GB or something, however my main concern is not having to replace the dayam thing again so quickly.

Hard one too call without getting my hands on it, but it could well be a dead drive from the noises you describe, I have one here with a clicking noise and as you seem to describe, the system refuses to see it, in such a case a new drive is the only solution.
However, if you can lay hands on ANY old hard drive you can do a quick check, simply hook up another drive and see if the system sees it, if it does then it's a bad drive issue, if however it still does not see the drive, then it may be cables, the PSU or board, to name the main possibles I can think of, but this is the first thing I suggest you try if possible, equally as you appear to have a second system to post here, try adding each drive in turn to the working system as slaves (set the jumpers if appropriate), see if the working system sees the problem drive(s), if it does then you need to look deeper into the other system, if it doesn't then thats about as dead cert a dead drive as you can get TBH.

The Seagate drive issue is a simple painless firmware fix, but which way you go depends on if you can access that drive, I am guessing you can't, I had one go the same way, Seagate picked it up, did a free recovery of my data (this is still on the drive and not lost), put the new firmware on and sent it back to me, but the longer you leave it the harder it gets as they may say why wait so long, so consider this a proverbial kick up the rear to get it done lol, don't worry I am not much better ROFL.

But as a hard drive choice my suggestion is always go for WD (Western Digital), very reliable, although in saying that my 2nd Raptor drive has just gone bad, but the upside is they have great warranty and are replacing it with the newer VelociRaptor, so great CS, although I can't fault Seagate over the known firmware issue drive either, but for best performance WD Black edition is my suggestion, but everyone has they're favourites, but not had a WD go bad apart from 2 Raptor's, more than I can say for any other make, but no one is a dead cert, anyone can have a bad batch or something, but the WD warranty and CS is great peace of mind, hope this helps a bit.

Oh and large drives, I guess there is a "risk" as they contain more data, but I couldn't say for sure one way or the other, haven't seen any damming evidence personally (waits for someone to link some lol ), the secret with these is simple, as they are so cheap, double up on them and create a mirrored array, then should 1 go bad, the other has the data nice and safe, trying to back up 1TB of data without a big enough spare drive is a logistical nightmare lol, I had to do it twice before I bought my 1TB to stop future issues, and I haven't needed it since lol, sods law strikes again lmao.

A very helpful reply I've opted to grab a WD Blue edition (for my wallet) which has some great reviews. I figure even if this is something else, I'm probably going to need it. I recall researching that firmware fix when the first drive died. Although they are both 500GB seagates, I think the newer one that seems to have died recently wasn't part of the defective line. Although now I'm thinking I might be wrong about that, hahaha. Hopefully I can overcome my laziness and mail one or both of those drives back to Seagate… I don't believe there is a time limit for that just yet. Fingers crossed, but it seems like this is a drive issue and not the rest of my rig. I will try the slave thing however. Unfortunately I do not have any working drives atm to throw into there and see, although I might be able to borrow a friend's soon… or just use the WD blue when it gets here. I had heard that larger drives have a higher propensity to overheat, as well as malfunction in general. But in general you're right, it seems worth it for the sake of backup to have two bigs rather than 4 smaller ones or something absurd like that.

Not quite sure what exact drive you are looking at, but here are a couple of drives for you too compare to the Blue one you are looking at, but yes it's always good to have a spare drive:-
Western Digital Caviar Black WD5001AALS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $59.99 (5 year warranty)
Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive $54.99 (half the cache)
Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000AADS 500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive $54.99 (on promotion)

The firmware fix only works if you can access the drive, otherwise it has to be returned for them to do, and they can recover the data if needed, main reason for this is because it was a manufacturers known defect, as opposed to a warranty thing, otherwise it would be dealt with as a normal RMA, but these things do have time limits, so they are always best dealt with sooner than later.

Cooling is a must for optimal performance in any system, most cases have provision for a fan behind the front panel, top end cases may have a different location depending on the hard drive cage, so I always advise adding a fan at such points to cool the drives, because they do get hot, and as you say this does impact it's lifespan, as well as performance, so have a look at you're system and see if you can add a fan for the drives, they will be much happier if you can, and you maximise they're life by doing so

The WD blue arrived here today. Oddly, my system still kind of hangs on startup (it takes a strangely long length of time before the signal kicks in and there are some system beeps I think), but the drive is working and everything is installing okay. Right now my cooling is an open case with a tower fan shooting at it so that will have to do for now. Hopefully I can invest in a new case somewhere down the line and keep the HD alive and not have to have a naked comp all the time. Only nice thing is my comp is fairly quiet. Anyway problem resolved, thanks for the help

Good to hear things moving forward, but I am concerned over you're start up issue, when added to the drive issue that occurred I am worried something worse may be happening in the background, so have a few things for you to check if you are up for it ?

Assuming you are can you recall if anything else happened prior to the drive dying ?
Were there any storms\lightning in the area recently to these things ?
Do you have a PSU tester ? (great inexpensive investment if you're always working with systems)
Do you have\use any kind of surge protection ?
Can you take special note of the beep codes if still present and report back with those along with the bios maker of the motherboard you have ?

Can you download and install SpeedFan, and report back with it's findings, and try running memtest (or similar) to check the ram, what I am fearing is bad power, or heat issues, and unless these are dealt with it can kill the whole system, more so bad power, so it is worth investigating if you wish, it's up to you.

I have a surge protector, and there haven't been any serious storms/lightning recently that I can remember. Nothing bad has happened to the computer per se, except that I have moved it around some to a few LANs and such. I have tried to be careful and pretty much carried it in my lap on the way. I don't have a PSU tester but perhaps I'll get one. I'll post soon with the beeps I hear and the SpeedFan/memtest stuff.

Moving it around with care sounds fine, but when in use at other locations, was it connected via a surge protector at these times as well ? And a storm doesn't need to be local, it could strike miles away and travel down the lines, you have also have to be aware about ALL connections into the system, it's all good having the mains going into the protector, but unless the phone line goes through it as well it is almost worthless in some respect, because if the phone line takes a hit it can travel down that way. But my fear is you're system may have taken a surge\spike at some point, and if it has damaged the system (more so the PSU), it could be an accident waiting to happen, hence wondering if you had, or could borrow a PSU tester, just for peace of mind, there is nothing worse than replacing a faulty part, to find the new part gets damaged because the original fault is still unsolved, which is why I am suggesting to check things out just to be safe, hopefully I am worrying over nothing, but it can't hurt to run the software checks as they are free, and also show the PSU power (click on the show the exotics tab), then go from there.

Ugh, interesting. It's still hanging kind of bad at the startup, and just now it froze a few times on startup (went to a black screen with a white bar across the bottom) and I had to reboot a few times to get it to go. I think it might be the PSU. I'm going to try and get a tester and see what I can do for sure. Pretty sure it was plugged into a surge at my friend's house, however, like you said these things can happen quite stealthily. I reaaally hope I don't have to replace more stuff! Using things right now, and all of yesterday, the performance has been 100% A-OK but booting still seems to be problematic.

Well run SpeedFan and see what that reports for the temp's, and for the voltages, probably easiest to take a couple of screenshots of these, it will give us some instant info as a guide, and may highlight a weak spot, but although a surge protector is good, it is not going to cover every spike etc, the safest option in a bad power area is a UPS device, these are by far the better option so you know.