Help with Dell Inspiron laptop

BillTrac

Daughters 2-year old inspiron 1525 laptop starting acting up. Normally I can sort out most problems but this one has me flummoxed.

At first it seemed to be a problem with the hard drive. So I installed a new one, and did a fresh installation of Windows XP. Fine, laptop goes through the install and then when it restarts it says there is no hard drive installed..:mad:

I have now tried two other hard drives as well as the original one. Still the same message

Anyone any ideas?

Shermanator

Sounds very much like the HDD controller gone on the motherboard.

The fact that you have tried more than 1 other HDD and still get the same issue, I would say that it's that. Weird how you got the OS on, sound intermittant.

You could try a BIOS update to see if that makes any difference

Donnie

Go into your BIOS. BIOS -> Config -> SATA -> (change: AHCI to Compatibility)

BillTrac

Donnie wrote: »

Go into your BIOS. BIOS -> Config -> SATA -> (change: AHCI to Compatibility)

Unfortunately, there is no config option in my BIOS. Using F12 to bring up the setup. HDD is either ATA or AHCI, which is the factory default

Donnie

You may be missing the correct drivers. There normally an opportunity to install them by pressing F6 whilst installing XP. Is there a BIOS update available on the DELL website?

Donnie

BillTrac wrote: »

Unfortunately, there is no config option in my BIOS. Using F12 to bring up the setup. HDD is either ATA or AHCI, which is the factory default

Try Disabling SATA in the BIOS/CMOS setup.

BillTrac

Donnie, you are a star. I am now looking at a normal Windows screen
Just going to set up the system

Thanks, just wish I could click thanks more than once.

Thought I was going to have to get her a new laptop...:rotfl: