Faulty HDD?

Crabman

We bought a new HDD from Scan for a laptop but soon after installation, it booted to the DELL splash screen then went to a black page with blinking cursor in top left. It resulted in reinstallation of Win XP.

Could have accepted it as a one-off, yet it's now happened again, so in went the DELL Diagnostics CD which decided HDD was fine, along with all other components.

We tried to repair the windows installation using the DELL Windows XP CD but there appears to be no windows installation as it asks to choose between repair or reinstall, then after selecting 'repair', goes to a C:\Windows DOS prompt and does nothing else.

I was in touch with Scan last time this happened but they are insistent that as the HDD has passed the diagnostic test there is nothing wrong with it. I downloaded the Western Digital diagnostic tool last time which also passed it.

The only other new component is the 2GB RAM (2 x 1GB) also purchased from Scan, but I'm not sure that would cause the problems experienced here (I also did a 48 hr memtest with them with no errors).

This never happened before the HDD was replaced and I can only think it is the HDD which is faulty. Any further advice would be greatly appreciated

Unstoppable_2

I suspect the RAM. I doubt very much you bought Crucial or Corsair but instead went for their lower priced stuff which usually comes with a host of compatibility issues for free.

Now the problem with this is Windows caches hard drive reads and writes in RAM and if you have an error with the RAM, this can result in a corrupt write to the hard drive. Although there's nothing physically wrong with the hard drive, the software fault that is produced because of the above can make it appear as if there is.

KathysBoy

Crabman wrote: »

We bought a new HDD from Scan for a laptop but soon after installation, it booted to the DELL splash screen then went to a black page with blinking cursor in top left. It resulted in reinstallation of Win XP.

Could have accepted it as a one-off, yet it's now happened again, so in went the DELL Diagnostics CD which decided HDD was fine, along with all other components.

We tried to repair the windows installation using the DELL Windows XP CD but there appears to be no windows installation as it asks to choose between repair or reinstall, then after selecting 'repair', goes to a C:\Windows DOS prompt and does nothing else.

I was in touch with Scan last time this happened but they are insistent that as the HDD has passed the diagnostic test there is nothing wrong with it. I downloaded the Western Digital diagnostic tool last time which also passed it.

The only other new component is the 2GB RAM (2 x 1GB) also purchased from Scan, but I'm not sure that would cause the problems experienced here (I also did a 48 hr memtest with them with no errors).

This never happened before the HDD was replaced and I can only think it is the HDD which is faulty. Any further advice would be greatly appreciated

If it´s booting to the C Drive then I would say that the HDD is okay, and your problem is the windows bootup is corrupted. This can happen at any time for a variety of reasons. New Ram would not have any effect at all.

If you use the XP disk then it only gives you the option to repair if it finds an installation of windows. if you type dir at the c:windows prompt you should be able to see all the windows sytem files. Theres lots of info on the net for repairing windows XP problems. This the one at Microsoft, and this is another, and this contains lots of different ones. I would persevere with this, although you may have to try a few things before it works.

Alternatively I would copy my personal files (using the DOS prompt) and then reinstall.

Avoriaz

Crabman, I could almost have written that post myself.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop. It is nearly five years old but still in excellent condition and still does everything I need. I put 2gb memory in about a year ago with no problems.

It comes with an 80gb disk. In early December I fitted a brand new Western Digital Scorpio 250gb disk. Everything was fine until Monday night when it refused to boot and all I got was a black screen with a blinking cursor top left just as you describe.

I swapped the 80gb back into the laptop and checked the 250gb drive in an external caddy. It appeared fine.

I downloaded WD diagnostics. It passed every test.

I put the 250 gb drive back in the laptop and ran Dell diagnostics (on my model you hold down the blue Fn key, second from left on the bottom row beside the Ctrl key while powering up). The laptop passed every test.

I rang Dell as it is still under extended five year warranty. They said it was a software fault and wanted £57 to guide me through Windows repair. I declined, as I would rather try myself or reload Windows than pay £57.

I attempted to run Windows repair from the Dell CD but didn’t get anywhere so I took the plunge, formatted the disk and started again from scratch. I’m now in the middle of redoing what I did in December with the new disk. All my data is backed up and I still have the original working 80gb disk with XP so I haven’t lost anything. I just have the tedium of hours of loading software and personalising it to suit how I like it.

In 15 years of home PCs I have never had Windows corrupt so badly that it wouldn’t boot.

Hopefully it is just a one off.

However your post makes me wonder if Dell laptops don’t like large drives? I doubt if this is true as mine worked fine for 5 weeks or so.

How big is your standard disk and how big is your upgrade disk?

As above, mine are 80gb and 250gb.

I very much doubt if your memory upgrade has caused the problem. I also doubt of your new disk is faulty. We are both almost certainly having XP software related issues.

I posted this yesterday.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1394557

Crabman

It's actually quite reassuring to know someone else has had a similar problem as I've not found any similar problems despite a lot of searching!

Original HDD was 40GB but it failed when the laptop was about two and a half years old. Replaced with a "160 GB Western Digital WD1600BEVE Scorpio Blue, 2.5" IDE (PATA), 5400 rpm, 8MB Cache, 12 ms" unit.

I'll phone DELL tomorrow and try to glean some information out of them and post back with their advice. My problem is the original HDD is faulty so I don't have the option of putting it back to troubleshoot.

Avoriaz

High capacity 2.5 inch laptop drives are so cheap now that it is worth having a spare fully loaded with Windows and software for emergencies.

If you don’t want to spend £40 or so on a new drive you can get 2.5 inch IDE/PATA drives very cheaply second hand on ebay as lots of people are upgrading to SATA and selling their PATA drives.

Good luck with sorting out your problem.

Don’t let Dell charge you £57 for advice you can get here for free.

Crabman

Called DELL who said it's possible that HDD needs to be reseated, apparently the flashing cursor means it has detected the hard drive but there is nothing/no instruction for what to load.

Advised to remove the hard drive and reinsert in case it's a loose contact (worth a try I suppose!) failing which, format and reinstall. Third time lucky maybe.

When you replaced your HDD did you have to remove the connector from the Dell HDD and put it on the new one, or did your new drive simply slot in and work?

I had to remove and refit the connector after wondering why the new HDD wasn't working first time. I wonder whether it could be something simple such as the connector possibly being faulty or incompatible.

They made no mention of a Win XP bug. :wall:

Avoriaz

On my Dell laptop, the hard drive needs a small connector.

This connector is inserted into the double rows of pins on the drive and it then mates with the socket inside the laptop.


A 2.5 inch IDE/PATA disk has a double row of 43 pins. There are 22 in the top row and 21 in the bottom row. The 13th pin on the bottom row is deliberately missed off. The connector doesn’t have a hole for the missing pin so it can only be fitted the correct way.

There are another four pins in two rows of two pins each. I think these are for jumper settings and can usually be ignored. My laptop connector does not fit over them.

Laptops all probably have different ways of fitting disks but they will comply with the IDE/PATA standard.

If your laptop uses the newer SATA interface disk then it will look different but the principles will be the same.

I suspect, but cannot be sure, that a connector is used as the pins are quite fragile. Inserting a disk and trying to push that directly into a slot deep inside a laptop might result in broken pins. The connector is rather more solid with bigger flat pins on a plastic base making an easy sliding fit into the socket.

Be careful how you handle the disk as the pins are fragile. Also only handle the disk gently by the sides. Try not to touch the circuitry or press on the top or bottom surfaces.

Avoriaz

Did you use the same connector that was on the failed disk?

Crabman

Yes the same connector from the failed HDD went on the new HDD and handled it very carefully. Think it's worth asking Scan whether they have a connector for it in case that's the source of the problem?

They were very helpful last time I contacted them but admittedly there wasn't much they could help with as the WD diagnostics passed so from their point of view there was no fault.

Avoriaz

I really doubt if it is the connector. Mine is a piece of tough of plastic with sturdy flat pins imbedded.

It would be difficult to break or damage.

Are all the pins on the new drive in place and not bent, broken or missing?

Can you borrow a suitable 2.5 inch drive and see if that is seen by the laptop?

I think it is 99% likely to be corrupted Windows.

A fresh install is always good to do if a bit tedious provide you can recover all your software and data from backups or from the drive before reformatting it.