I am going to cry

Cute_'n'_Quirky

Having had a Toshiba laptop for three years which was nothing but trouble from day one - having THREE replacement motherboards in those three extended warranty years I bought a new laptop.

Have had five Dell desktop pcs in 18 years and never had one iota of trouble with any of them, never had an engineer out, nothing. Just changed to upgrade etc.

Bought a Dell Inspiron 1501 running Windows XP MediaCentre four months ago.

Switched on at 6pm today - blue screen with a fault message.

Phoned Dell. Done all the diagnostic works, etc.

Needs a new hard-drive!!!!!!!

Dell say I will lose everything. Yes, about 75% of the stuff on my documents was on a 1Gb pen but not the rest.

So, Dell are sending a new hard-drive out to me with new software to reset it.

Is this true? Will I lose everything?

Is this normal for a laptop to need a new hard-drive?

What did I do wrong? Is it just a fault?

albertross_2

what is the message, does it make any noise?

Always a good idea to keep everything important backed up, HD's die sometimes, fact of life. HD's are bought in from a handful of HD manufacturers, so don't let it put you off Dell, the same HD type could be found in many laptops.

Cute_'n'_Quirky

Starts with a black and white page which says that Windows didn't start successfully which could be due to a recent software change etc. Then says to click on the button to start windows normally which brings -

Blue Screen -

A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME

Follow the steps to make sure that any new hardward or software is properly installed (haven't added anything at all)

Then to try restarting the computer, click on F8 and then to safe mode.

Technical information
STOP: OXOOOOOOE


Keeps going back to that same screen.

Dell had me through all that.
Then the clicking on F11 on start up
Then the F8, I think to access the diagnostics, which it passed.

Dell then said it needed a new hard-drive.

Cute_'n'_Quirky

No, no noise!

Never had this problem before, it is all new to me!

albertross_2

when you get the XP CD, try the damaged file system bit here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297185

might not fix it, but worth a try.

what diagnostics did they go through?

MrsTinks

From Microsoft Technet:

SYMPTOMS

loadTOCNode(1, 'symptoms');When you first restart your computer during the upgrade to Windows XP or when you start Windows XP, you may receive the following error message, where aaaaaaaa, bbbbbbbb, cccccccc, and dddddddd are hexadecimal numbers that may vary: STOP 0x000000ED (0xaaaaaaaa,0xbbbbbbbb,0xcccccccc,0xdddddddd) UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME


NOTE: If you receive this error message when you restart the computer for the first time during an upgrade to Windows XP, your original operating system still works correctly. In some cases, a message appears on the BIOS report screen that states that the wrong cable is in use, but you may not see this message on computers that have a fast startup time. Back to the top

CAUSE

loadTOCNode(1, 'cause');This behavior can occur if either of the following conditions is true: •Your computer uses an Ultra Direct Memory Access (UDMA) hard disk controller, and the following conditions are true: •You use a standard 40-wire connector cable to connect the UDMA drive to the controller instead of the required 80-wire, 40-pin cable.•The basic input/output system (BIOS) settings are configured to force the faster UDMA modes.•The file system is damaged and cannot be mounted.Back to the top

RESOLUTION

loadTOCNode(1, 'resolution');To resolve this behavior, use the appropriate method. Back to the top
UDMA Controller

loadTOCNode(2, 'resolution');If your computer uses a UDMA hard disk controller, use the following procedures: •Replace the 40-wire cable with an 80-wire UDMA cable.•In the BIOS settings for your computer, load the 'Fail-Safe' default settings, and then reactivate the most frequently used options such as USB Support.Back to the top
Damaged File System

loadTOCNode(2, 'resolution');If the second parameter (0xbbbbbbbb) of the Stop error is 0xC0000032, then the file system is damaged.

If this is the case, restart the computer to the Recovery Console, and then use the chkdsk /r command to repair the volume. After you repair the volume, check your hardware to isolate the cause of the file system damage.

To do this, use the following steps: 1.Start your computer with the Windows startup disks, or with the Windows CD-ROM if your computer can start from the CD-ROM drive.2.When the Welcome to Setup screen appears, press R to select the repair option.3.If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the Windows installation that you want to access from the Recovery Console.4.Type the administrator password when you are prompted to do so.

NOTE: If no administrator password exists, press ENTER.5.At the command prompt, on the drive where Windows is installed, type chkdsk /r, and then press ENTER.6.At the command prompt, type exit, and then press ENTER to restart your computer.For additional information about how to use the Recovery Console in Windows XP, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 314058 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058/EN-US/) Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console
If this procedure does not work, repeat it and use the fixboot command in step 5 instead of the chkdsk /r command.

MrsTinks

IF it does need a new hard drive you might still be able to get it to spin up as a slave drive if you buy a converter cable (I can insert them in my external hard drive mounting as it uses laptop harddrives which has been handy at times) and see if you can access the data on your drive long enough to salvage what you need.

Cute_'n'_Quirky

The full technical information is

STOP: OXOOOOOOED (OX84BCBC08, 0XC0000006, 0X00000000, 0X00000000)

It would appear from the information above that the system is alright?

MrsTinks

maybe - (sorry posted this first before I read your answer properly...)

It's still possible it's a hardware problem but try the other soplutions - figure you haven't much to loose

elite_2

tine wrote: »

IF it does need a new hard drive you might still be able to get it to spin up as a slave drive if you buy a converter cable (I can insert them in my external hard drive mounting as it uses laptop harddrives which has been handy at times) and see if you can access the data on your drive long enough to salvage what you need.

Yeah with a bit of luck, mount it as a slave - although windows seems to be trashed it doesn't mean the whole disk is

albertross_2

have you tried safe mode (F8 at boot)?