My pc would not boot up, I have made no software or hardware changes.
The bios or fdisk would not recognise the drive and I could not hear the hard drive starting up.
I borrowed my fathers PC for testing. My fathers PC will also not recognise my hard drive and again I can not hear the hard drive spinning.
I thought I would test my fathers hard drive in my pc. The pc booted up but halfway through starting windows (I did get the windows start up splash screen for about 10 - 15 seconds) I got a blue screen.
The blue screen said it found a problem with my PC and would shut down the PC to prevent damage. It told me if I had added new software or hardware I should remove it to see if that solves the problem. As I have said previously I have made no changes to my pc.

What could cause my hard drive to die? Is it possible to short out a hard drive?

My bios reports no errors and I have tried resetting defaults.

Win XP
512 mb ram
2.26 ghz pentium 4 with 533 fsb
asus pt4533-c motherboard
geforce 4 ti4600
soundblaster audigy

What happened with your father’s HDD is only to be expected.
His configuration settings are in the registry and various files on that HDD and are made to suit HIS HARDWARE, as are the drivers.
The configuration settings and drivers would not match your hardware unless the two PC’s were made of identical hardware items.
If you make any changes to the configuration settings and drivers on his HDD to make it work on your PC, it won’t then work on his. BEWARE! Don’t make changes unless you want this.

The switch seems to show, however, that his drive works and yours does not
[beware of what “seems” to be].
YOU made no changes and it stopped working.
Something must have changed or it would still be working.
Has the hardware gone faulty; or the jumper fallen off; or a cable come loose; or a BIOS setting been altered?
Is the HDD jumpered correctly [as Master perhaps (and connected to the Primary IDE socket)] as specified by the manufacturer?
Are all the drives set to “Auto” detect in the “Standard CMOS Setup” in the BIOS Setup?

Download the diagnostic programme for testing the drive from the manufacturers web site and test the drive.
I presume you CAN boot from a floppy?

Here’s what my “Diagnostic Charts” say:

START UP
1. Is the PC dead? No.
2. Did POST appear to run? Yes.
3. Were there any audible beeps? Yes, one.
4. Is the monitor display correct? Yes.
5. Is there an error code? No.
6. This is a BOOT UP problem.

BOOT UP
1. Active Display, no error codes, POST appears to run.
2. Does the system boot from the Hard Disk Drive? No.
3. This is a HARD DISK DRIVE problem [well surprise, surprise!]

HARD DISK DRIVE
1. System does not boot from Hard Disk Drive.
2. Does system boot from floppy? Yes.
3. Run Diagnostics from Floppy disk to check HDD. [If no error is reported do the SYSTEM TEST]
If an error is reported does it appear to be software or hardware related?
If software related then check the configuration and use software diagnostics [I don’t know what these are].
If it appears to be hardware related then:
4. Is the signal cable ok? If not replace the cable and re-test.
If the cable is ok then:
5. Replace the drive with a known good drive and re-test with diagnostics.
If the new drive does not test as ok then the system board or an adaptor is faulty.
If the new drive tests as ok then THE ORIGINAL DRIVE IS FAULTY. [this appears to be your situation]

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It does appear that your hard drive is fried and there are many reason that this can happen. Sometimes hard drives just die, sometimes they are killed by heat, sometimes they are damaged by vibration, and so on. If it isn't out of warranty, I would contact the maker and see if you can get an RMA. Most hard drives until recently had a 3 year warranty. It usually will have the date of manufacture on the drive and they determine the warranty from there.

Budfred

Welcome to PCGuide forums !! :):)

The hard drive could fail due to the following reasons:

Excessive heat.
Shock.
Irregular fluctuated power supply.
Mechanical part failure.