Where's my hard disk gone?

[morningglory]

Hi there...

I've recently got a cable modem and thought it would be a good idea to set up a fire wall/proxy (packet filtering) to TRY to keep out those pesky little devils that call themselves hackers!. I've been running Red Hat 7.0 on a Intel 486 P233Mhz with 128 megs of RAM and a 4gig (Fujitsu - I think) 24hrs 7 days a week for a while now but some reason it crashes with a Kernel Panic from time to time. After a reboot the bios is unable to see the hard disk(?), I leave the machine off for 5-10 minutes and then switch it on again and the hard disk comes back to life (weird or what )?....

I've searched various Linux web sites looking for some sort of explaination but no joy.

I've tried re-setting the bios back to default and re-installing Red Hat a million and one times - still no joy.

If someone could at least point me in the right direction I would be most appreciative.

Many thanks,

Steve. :rolleyes:

[Piix4]

If your bios is not "seeing" you hard disk no matter how infrequent you could be in serious trouble.

It could be your bios version , checksum whatever you want to call it or it could be the hard-disk or (hopefully this) , open up your pc - make sure it's off first ok?
Now find the long flat grey cable that connects to the back of your hard-drive and remove it ok?

Now just reattach that and make sure it is totally flush with the device right?, now earth yourself on a part of the metal case in case of electro-static discharge right?
now reseat the other end of the cable in the motherboard ok?

If after reseating this you still have the same problems you could be looking at a bios flash(don't do this unless you are sure you have the right version ok?) or a new hard-disk which if you go somewhere like maplin will be about £250.00 punts which should be about 200 sterling I think?

Rafter.

[DMR]

I agree with piix4, it sounds more hardware-related than OS-related, especially if it comes back to life after you let it sit for a while. You might have a weak/failing component. You may also be able to do a BIOS reset, which is less involved than a BIOS flash. It usually means setting a jumper on the motherboard and restarting once to initiate the reset; check with your machine's manufacturer for details. I had to do it once to clear up similar problems, which it did (and I was running Win98). If that or cable reseating doesn't help, a BIOS flash would be one of the next steps.
Don't forget to examine all of the components for physical signs that might suggest overheating, and don't discount the possibility of a failing stick of RAM.