EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-04, 12:50:

...Well shit, the hard drive died yesterday and I don't have the money to get another one at the moment.

Hi, can you elaborate on what kind of failure that hard drive has? Me or someone else on the forum might be able to help if you get into more details on what is wrong with it.

For example:
Is it completely unresponsive, just sitting like a brick in the machine?
Is it making clicking noises?
Does it do something but always return corrupted data?

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-05, 07:12:

Hi, can you elaborate on what kind of failure that hard drive has? Me or someone else on the forum might be able to help if you […]
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EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-04, 12:50:

...Well shit, the hard drive died yesterday and I don't have the money to get another one at the moment.

Hi, can you elaborate on what kind of failure that hard drive has? Me or someone else on the forum might be able to help if you get into more details on what is wrong with it.

For example:
Is it completely unresponsive, just sitting like a brick in the machine?
Is it making clicking noises?
Does it do something but always return corrupted data?

Tries to read, but just beeps.

EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-05, 09:13:

Tries to read, but just beeps.

I assume the beeps are coming from the PC Speaker during the attempt of booting from the HDD, is this correct?

The Siemens Nixdorf D1064 motherboard has a Phoenix BIOS, which means that the beep codes are either comes in 3 parts or 4 parts.

For example a 4 part beep code might be: 3 beeps pause 2 beeps pause 1 beep pause 1 beep pause giving 3-2-1-1, which means Hard Disk Controller initialization fault.

Is this the BIOS beep code you are getting?

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-05, 09:40:

I assume the beeps are coming from the PC Speaker during the attempt of booting from the HDD, is this correct? […]
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EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-05, 09:13:

Tries to read, but just beeps.

I assume the beeps are coming from the PC Speaker during the attempt of booting from the HDD, is this correct?

The Siemens Nixdorf D1064 motherboard has a Phoenix BIOS, which means that the beep codes are either comes in 3 parts or 4 parts.

For example a 4 part beep code might be: 3 beeps pause 2 beeps pause 1 beep pause 1 beep pause giving 3-2-1-1, which means Hard Disk Controller initialization fault.

Is this the BIOS beep code you are getting?

The beeping is coming from the hard drive itself.

EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-05, 10:44:

The beeping is coming from the hard drive itself.

I assume that the hard drive is the Quantum Bigfoot TX mentioned in your signature? While I do have some Quantum Fireballs, I don't have a Bigfoot so I have checked the technical manuals that I have found, and it confirmed what I unfortunately feared, none of technical manuals mention the Bigfoot TX to have a beeper installed.

Which means that the beeping noise coming from the drive is most likely caused by the grinding of the platters in the hard disk if it is a continuos noise, or if it is not a continuos one then by the servo moving the head. These errors are either caused by having an error in the motor/servo controller of the HDD or a mechanical issue inside the HDD casing itself.

If you have access to a working oscilloscope then we can try to debug the motor/servo controller. If you don't then the cost of a quality oscilloscope would be greater than the cost of a new drive unfortunately 🙁.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-05, 14:19:

I assume that the hard drive is the Quantum Bigfoot TX mentioned in your signature? While I do have some Quantum Fireballs, I do […]
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EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-05, 10:44:

The beeping is coming from the hard drive itself.

I assume that the hard drive is the Quantum Bigfoot TX mentioned in your signature? While I do have some Quantum Fireballs, I don't have a Bigfoot so I have checked the technical manuals that I have found, and it confirmed what I unfortunately feared, none of technical manuals mention the Bigfoot TX to have a beeper installed.

Which means that the beeping noise coming from the drive is most likely caused by the grinding of the platters in the hard disk if it is a continuos noise, or if it is not a continuos one then by the servo moving the head. These errors are either caused by having an error in the motor/servo controller of the HDD or a mechanical issue inside the HDD casing itself.

If you have access to a working oscilloscope then we can try to debug the motor/servo controller. If you don't then the cost of a quality oscilloscope would be greater than the cost of a new drive unfortunately 🙁.

Nope, a Maxtor DiamondMax 30GB. The Quantum Bigfoot is just a Druaga1 reference

If a Maxtor is making a beeping noise and the drive doesn't spin up, the spindle motor is likely stuck and the beeping noise is from the drive cycling the motor rapidly to try to break it free.

You may be able to get the drive to unstick by giving it a clockwise flick right as you power it on but that has a high chance of damage and it may only work once.

EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-05, 14:31:

Nope, a Maxtor DiamondMax 30GB. The Quantum Bigfoot is just a Druaga1 reference

I assume it is a DiamondMax Plus not a normal DiamondMax, as the normal DiamondMax didn't had a 30GB version AFAIK, but the DiamondMax Plus 30 GB version was relatively common.

Anyway I don't think any of the DiamondMax-es or DiamondMax Plus -es had a beeper so my previous conclusion unfortunately stands 🙁.

onethirdxcubed wrote on 2026-05-05, 14:51:

You may be able to get the drive to unstick by giving it a clockwise flick right as you power it on but that has a high chance of damage and it may only work once.

While this might work it has a high chance of damaging the hard drive even more, so I would only recommend doing it if EmberBlitz07 doesn't intend to use that hard drive for regular purposes, but as a last chance to recover data from it.

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-05, 15:00:

I assume it is a DiamondMax Plus not a normal DiamondMax, as the normal DiamondMax didn't had a 30GB version AFAIK, but the Diam […]
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EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-05, 14:31:

Nope, a Maxtor DiamondMax 30GB. The Quantum Bigfoot is just a Druaga1 reference

I assume it is a DiamondMax Plus not a normal DiamondMax, as the normal DiamondMax didn't had a 30GB version AFAIK, but the DiamondMax Plus 30 GB version was relatively common.

Anyway I don't think any of the DiamondMax-es or DiamondMax Plus -es had a beeper so my previous conclusion unfortunately stands 🙁.

onethirdxcubed wrote on 2026-05-05, 14:51:

You may be able to get the drive to unstick by giving it a clockwise flick right as you power it on but that has a high chance of damage and it may only work once.

While this might work it has a high chance of damaging the hard drive even more, so I would only recommend doing it if EmberBlitz07 doesn't intend to use that hard drive for regular purposes, but as a last chance to recover data from it.

Yea, a Plus.

And also yea, I just decided to cut my losses. Nothing I wanted to rescue off the drive anyways

Sad news - my RAM stick may have died.

It still turns on, and the hard drive I got (Seagast Medalist 6531 6.4GB) and the CD drive all spin up, but no display is shown, the HDD status light doesn't blink aside from initial powerup and force shutdown, and it doesn't go any farther (e.g. the floppy drive doesn't seek), which might be a RAM problem. If it was a GPU problem surely it'd be able to go farther, right? Don't have a beeper or POST tester atm and real tight on cash at the moment (by that i mean £1.14 in terms of my PayPal balance), so it's in limbo for the time being.

I seem to recall the seller saying that the motherboard was picky on RAM and provided some with it. Have you tried swapping back to that RAM?

Hi,

Try carefully cleaning the pins of the RAM module and the slot you are inserting it into. Also try to make sure you are putting the RAM module into the first Memory Bank on the motherboard, some Siemens Motherboards are picky about that too.

According to the manual:
https://theretroweb.com/motherboard/manual/ft … d3580746795.pdf
This is one of the motherboards where counter-intuitively the first slot is the farthest one from the CPU.

RetroPCCupboard wrote on 2026-05-09, 18:38:

I seem to recall the seller saying that the motherboard was picky on RAM and provided some with it. Have you tried swapping back to that RAM?

Think one of the ICs fell off that RAM and it doesn't work.

EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-09, 19:08:

Think one of the ICs fell off that RAM and it doesn't work.

Can you post a picture of the Memory Module showing the place where the missing IC is? Some modules have place for an IC to be configured as Buffered or ECC RAM, and it might be missing intentionally if it is a version of the DIMM which lacks these features. So if there is no visible damage it is possible that it is missing intentionally.

Here.

May have fell off in shipping but I'm not sure.

EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-09, 19:16:

Here.

The attachment IMG_20260509_201352.jpg is no longer available

May have fell off in shipping but I'm not sure.

This definitely chipped off, and the chips legs seems to be bent, are you comfortable with using a soldering iron?

MagefromAntares wrote on 2026-05-09, 19:19:

EmberBlitz07 wrote on 2026-05-09, 19:16:

Here.

The attachment IMG_20260509_201352.jpg is no longer available

May have fell off in shipping but I'm not sure.

This definitely chipped off, and the chips legs seems to be bent, are you comfortable with using a soldering iron?

Comfortable, but don't have one.