[PLUG] Computer no boot

[Tim]

Michael,

> Does this sound like it could be the hard drive that failed?  I
> thought those commonly gave some warnings, like wonky behavior in
> advance of complete failure, but perhaps that's only true when some
> sectors of the drive are wearing out.  Everything had been working
> fine, then kabluey.  I have a spare hard drive, but I'm not sure how
> to go about replacing the existing drive.  Do I have to reinstall the
> BIOS?  (I have an ASUS disc I've never even taken out of its package.)


Those messages are confusing, but I'm going to take a guess that it's
a drive failure.  Note the BIOS message was in relation to a Serial
ATA RAID BIOS.  Maybe when the drive stopped responding, the system
BIOS went into a different mode and tried to identify if you have RAID
arrays.  The clicking noises are certainly consistent with a drive
failure.

I would just try putting in a fresh drive and see if you can get a
base OS install on it.  If run into hardware problems with that, then
you can start narrowing it down to other pieces of hardware.

Good luck,
tim