Computer melt down and Harddrives won't work probs

[Tim]

My computer's power supply decided to melt down and the computer will not boot up after the power supply was replaced.  I installed new RAM and CPU, but still would not work.

I installed the hard drive into a separate machine, but the separate machine would not recognize or do anything with the hard drive.  The separate machine would work ok and recognize its hard drive before addition of the hard drive from the melt down computer.

The hard drive had programs and data sensitive to work, but now I cannot access the programs or data.  The hard drive would no spin up when connected to the computer's power supply.

Is there any way I can recover the programs and data from the melt down computer hard drive?
Or is there no way to get the stuff from the hard drive?

Thank you for your assistance.

[natesneat2000]

If you are desperate, you can always call DriveSavers, but I hear they are very expensive. Back up, back up, back up.

[merlin]

the hard drive on the other pc do you click the ide auto detect in the bios- recovery progams are here>http://www.lc-tech.com/download.htm   after changing the cpu ram did you check the mobo?

[Tim]

I checked the motherboard and drive settings, and both were ok.  

I have the BIOS set to auto-detect for hard drives, but that was before the melt-down.  

Now, when I turn on the computer (after a new power supply was installed and properly connected), the BIOS never loads.  It just sits there with a blamk screen amd goes no where fast.

The monitor does work ok when connected to another computer.

The hard drive was set as master on the burnt out computer.  I replaced the good hard drive on the good computer with the burnt-out computer's hard drive.  But the burnt out computer hard drive didn't spin or show any sign than it was connected.  Both power and data cables were connected.  The cables worked ok since they worked ok with the new working hard drive/

I also had two optical disc drives connected to the computer that burnt out.  Before the computer burnt out, the optical drives worked great, reliable reading and writing on the optical drives.  After the burn out, one of the optical drive's tray was forceable ejected by the computer.  I could not close the optical drive door until I unplugged the computer.  The other optical drive did not make its try to force the tray out, but both drives would not work or be rerognized by the burnt out computer or the new working computer.

The RAM chip somehow got scrambled.  I replaced the RAM chip with a new working chip, but the system still would not load or work.

I examined the motherboard and CPU (slot A, AMD Athalon), but saw no burn marks or scorches from flame.  I traded the CPU for one I knew that works, but still no go.

From what I can guess, there was some kind of surge that wiped the system BIOS and the hard / optical drive bios's.  But that does not explain the lack of the hard drive from spinning when started.

If there were a surge, do you know if the hard drive was erased and the hard drive BIOS ?

Thank you for your assistance.

[merlin]

power spikes can ruin your hard drive   you run test on the h/drive ?  the mobo may have also suffered from this surge?>what make is your mobo and hdrive some mobos have a temp shutdown on them in case of power spikes/surges? and most mobos have an install disk for the mobo ?try reseting the jumpers to see if you obtain the bios and also change the cmos battery it may have suffered also? are there any beeps ?if not the mobo may have had it?the lost of bios maybe you need the install disk?suggestions

[Tim]

The motherboard was  Gigabyte  7iXE.  The hard drives were   Fugitsu 10gigs and a  Maxtor 40gigs.  The BIOS had a date of about 1999 or 2000.  

There are no beeps, be it right after turning on or waiting for 60 minutes after turning it on.
The PC speaker was working before the melt down, so I would hear the beeps if they were there.


Thinking back to when the melt down computer was working, sometimes I had to hard restart the computer when nothing would appear on the screen after booting.

Thanks for your help