Help laptop wont boot up

neiljc_2

Hi

my dell inspiron 1750 froze last night and now wont boot up.

it shows the dell inspiron screen and then goes to a black screen with a cursor in the top right hand corner.

it was running vista 64 bit pre installed so I dont have the disks.

I do have a windows 7 operating disk however which came with the laptop.

Can i run this and solve the problem?

will I lose all my data if I do this?

Do I need to recover my data first and how could I do this?

thanks

Neil

gavsto2005

You need to rule out a hardware issue so follow these steps:

1) http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/document?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&docid=A9E3A15597A04AFBB02EE16785D39C5C#Issue2

This will enable you to run the Dell Diagnostics based on that you can tell if there is a hardware issue or not. With the information you have given it sounds to me like either your Operating System is goosed or the hard drive is not detecting.

neiljc_2

gavsto2005 wrote: »

You need to rule out a hardware issue so follow these steps:

1) http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/document?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&docid=A9E3A15597A04AFBB02EE16785D39C5C#Issue2

This will enable you to run the Dell Diagnostics based on that you can tell if there is a hardware issue or not. With the information you have given it sounds to me like either your Operating System is goosed or the hard drive is not detecting.

Thanks for that

ran diagnostics

got the dreaded error code 0146 which means failed hard drive apparently, Dell have confirmed.

Am i able to recover the data by putting it in a hard drive enclosuren (2.5" SATA I preume) and attaching to another pc?

Browntoa

possibly.......but don't bank on it

a chkdsk of the disc MAY recover the data for long enough to remove it

tomsolomon

I would try and avoid running a chkdsk on a failing HDD, the less stress you put on the drive the better.
Take it out of the laptop and plug it into a desktop, to try and recover some of the data, might take a few attempts.
Of course if the drive is totally knackered it wont even spin up, but worth a try...
Hope you backed up your data....

neiljc_2

Thanks everyone

I ran ubuntu from a disc and although I couldnt get it to copy all the disc at once. I was able to spend about half an hour finding files and copying them across to a new hard drive.

ther wasnt anything desperate on there but you dont want to lose anything