I Am An Idiot, Serafita Kayin Are You Out There?

Okay, here's the story...

I ordered a shiny new case, a shiny new 600w PSU, and a shiny "cooling and lighting" kit I put together. They arrived today. I'm over the moon with my new case/fans/lights, but I think I've done a very, very, very stupid thing.

Since installing all the new stuff and carrying over my hardware to the new case, my secondary hard disk now clicks loudly and won't allow Windows to start up. I fear that while connecting all the fans and LEDs I may have *gulp* connected too much to one line and surged the HDD.

Strangely also, I found that all the options in my BIOS had reset to factory standards and I had to change everything back. This can't be normal.

Just looking for confirmation here, and on any suggestions you might have about salvaging my HDD. I fear it may be close to death though. R.I.P.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: I know this isn't Guild Wars related, but I trust Serafita as an overclocking freak and a modder to know what he's talking about, so hush.

OK, first things first.

Take what I'm about to say and run with it, no funny looks.

Take your hard drive out and check it for physical damage. Check the PCB for burn marks, sniff for fried circuitry, and shake it to see if it rattles.

No? Check to see that it is properly recognized by the BIOS. Reset DMA modes and such if necessary. Check jumper settings and boot order. DO NOT use cable select, it can cause issues like this.

No? Put it in a ziploc bag and freeze it for 4-5 hours. Then try it. Sometimes the spindle jumps the bearing and this will reseat it long enough to transfer data, sometimes permanently.

Remove all extraneous lights, fans, animated object d'art, and posters of Michael Jackson. Make sure that it gets a straight feed from the molex, and don't split it or anything else.

What's the make and model of said 600W power supply? It may already be RMA time, for drive and supply, but these will help. If by the time you've tried all this, it doesn't work, you may safely assume the drive has gone to the happy server in the sky and is well beyond suffering, so lament its loss, know that it believed in the CPU that OCed itself for all circuitkind, and RMA it if the warranty is still in effect.

When all else fails, wave a broken component at the computer and threaten to make them alike.

Oh, and thanks. Try removing all extra load first, now that I think of it. I think your PSU is the problem.

Just spam his E-Mail with:

"I was playing with my hard drive and I broke it."

Hope you get it fixed, can't help you with hard drive problems... Never really looked into them before.

The only thing I can actually thing of is that the arm in the hard drive might be damaged or the disk itself. I'll assume you were careful with them, so how long have you had this one hard drive for?

(Leaving work early, so I'll read if its fixed later tonight. (9:30 ESTish.))

Good luck.

*EndEdit*
I'll guess you were on the forums man, because your Superman skills of hearing someone in need are amazing?

Thanks for the fast reply Serafita, you're a bloody star. I've tried a number of things on that list, but I may as well finish the rest off ASAP.

Just going to copy down what you said then give it a shot. I'll let you know how it goes. As for my PSU it's a "house" (own brand) PSU from www.ebuyer.com, a company I trust implicitly. It doesn't specify what make and model it is, but all necessary information about it is right on that clicky.

I knew I should've waited for my Antec Truepower to go in-stock instead of buying a cheap thing to tide my craving. Oh well, I always have to learn the hard way.

Oh man, that makes me wanna cry. You're maybe getting 350 out of it if you're lucky after it heats up.

Yeah, get the NeoPower. Good PSU. I prefer Enermax and Ultra myself, but they rock, so no need to fear on power.

The PSU is pants, honestly, and it most likely did bollox your drive. Tell the wankers they'll replace your fecking drive. And yes, I do know what I just said.

My roommates were often Brits in college. I do so love the Queen's English...

So in closing, new PSU, most likely new hard drive, and I'd wrap up a dead squirrel in the PSU box before shipping back.

LOL, I'm back. The BIOS settings were fine (although a couple of options I forgot to change were still set to factory), I took out the HDD and when I shake it I hear a slight "zipping" and sliding sound, but it's only quiet. It does smell slightly scorched, but it's so faint that I can't tell wether it's scorch smell or simple heat smell.

I'll send back the PSU, reluctantly, because my new PSU is not here yet. I don't want to risk exploding more components though.

So, I assume my HDD is dead? Luckily I only used it as a backup drive.

Edit: BTW I do need to know... Did it surge on its own or did I connect too much junk to the same bunch of molexes? If it was just me then I might keep that PSU for my crappy "other" PC.

Hug your HDD and send it to Jesus. Its soul is in a better place.

If I had your drive, I may could salvage parts of it, but that's a pretty delicate operation. I'd rather not try it, unless the data was irreplaceable, valuable, and I was being paid gross sums of money.

Glad to be of service, never hesitate to call if you need help.

Crappy other PC may can live with it, try it and see. I think the power draw was too much and a rail dipped too low. You can beat on rails with lighting, believe it or not, and a powerful system beats even harder. 6600GT couldn't have helped that.

Guess since its fried you can take it apart and see what happened eh?

Curiousity has me here and I'd rather not waste the only physical one I have right now.

Yeah I had a feeling all the extra lighting etc. would've sent it over the edge, in conjunction with a 64bit processor and a 6600GT I wasn't too confident in the first place to be honest.

I'll keep the PSU for the "other" PC as the "other" PC is completely disposable at this point. I wish I could've kept my HDD though, lol, nice Seagate Barracuda, even if it was only 60Gb. Just glad it's not my 160Gb primary, that one costed.

I'll give ebuyer some verbal abuse anyway, might get me a small refund or something. Thanks for all the help!