Complete meltdown, need suggestions

[Hashjie]

Hey everyone,

A friend of mine asked me to check out his computer because he told me that his monitor didn't display anything anymore all of a sudden.

So I went over to his house and checked if the cables where okay. Which it was.
Then afterwards I removed the graphics card and replaced it with a graphic card from another computer to check if that worked. Nonetheless, it also failed.

Then I noticed that the mouse and keyboard that where plugged into the computer did not show any "light" so I thought it might have something to do with the motherboard.

I haven't done much with that at this moment, but the main priority was to check if the hard drive still worked, so I unplugged it and tryed to boot up the hard drive from my own pc. Unfortunately it did not respond to anything but I was abled to see it in my boot setup.

I think that the chips of the motherboard might have overheated causing it to destroy the hardware that was inside the computer. The mouse and keyboard do not work on another computer, the graphics card does not work on another computer, the hard drive does not work on another computer.

What would be the best way to determine the cause of this issue?
The computer is 9 years old, so I told my friend: It's time to buy a new one.
Is there anything I can still do to save this computer from a tragic death?

The most frustrating part for him is that it was the computer of his dad who recently passed away. Some important files of his dad where still on the hard drive. I know there is a way of recovering it, but if you let a computer store do it it'll cost a insanely high criminal amount of money. And you can't even be sure if everything is recoverable.

Please be a good guy and help him out by helping me out

 

[Kercyn]

Well, if everything's toast I can't see how you're going to save the data. A faulty PSU might have caused the trouble too. There are a few companies that specialize on extracting data from physically damaged HDDs, but the cost is over the roof, and usually not worth it. Found this too, dunno if it helps.

 

[Hashjie]

If the hard drive gets detected by Windows and can be accessed but you do not see any data inside

For him, this is not the case. I'm unabled to even boot into the hard drive. My pc automatically shuts down after bootscreen with that HD plugged in :S.
I guess he's screwed

Ow lol I didn't read the rest of the article, this freezing method does seem like a last resort indeed. But I'm exited about testing that !

 

[Gilles]

I agree with Kercyn, it sounds like a PSU issue. Although mouse and keyboard? That doesn't make any sense.

 

[Dr Super Good]

For him, this is not the case. I'm unabled to even boot into the hard drive. My pc automatically shuts down after bootscreen with that HD plugged in :S.

Obviously because I am guessing your computer is completly different from it (the drivers in his OS have no idea about your hardware).

Try and access the drive as a slave drive when booting from your normal OS. As long as the OS is able to read the drive format it should appear as any other hard drive in your Computer folder. Older mechanical drives will require you to change the pin configuration for this to work (as they default to being masters but frankly I have no idea about this depricated system anymore since SATA connectors became standard).

As for the problem with his computer, it sounds like the PSU is over volting everything from the graphic card to the USB ports which would explain why everything is dieing. If you have a volt meter that is safe to use on mains devices you could try measuring the supply cables to see if the voltages are within the specified tollerences.

The data on the mechanical hard drive should be completly intact if this was the case. The only faults might be with the read mechanisim (but I doubt that as you said it is recognizing it).

 

[Hashjie]

Obviously because I am guessing your computer is completly different from it (the drivers in his OS have no idea about your hardware).

Try and access the drive as a slave drive when booting from your normal OS. As long as the OS is able to read the drive format it should appear as any other hard drive in your Computer folder. Older mechanical drives will require you to change the pin configuration for this to work (as they default to being masters but frankly I have no idea about this depricated system anymore since SATA connectors became standard).

I tried accessing the drive as a slave and as a master.
Both did not do any good
And yes I did switch the jumper.
It doesn't show in my computer nor in disk manager. Which I thought was odd.

As for the problem with his computer, it sounds like the PSU is over volting everything from the graphic card to the USB ports which would explain why everything is dieing. If you have a volt meter that is safe to use on mains devices you could try measuring the supply cables to see if the voltages are within the specified tollerences.

Great idea! I will do so most certainly.

The data on the mechanical hard drive should be completly intact if this was the case. The only faults might be with the read mechanisim (but I doubt that as you said it is recognizing it).

This does make sense. I'll pray to science that it is indeed intact.