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    5 day old m14x, dead HDD?

    Discussion in 'Alienware 14 and M14x' started by kyomagi, Jun 18, 2011.

  1. kyomagi

    kyomagi Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ok i'll cut to the chase, here is the error

    Check cable connection!
    PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM.
    No bootable device -- insert boot disk and press any key"

    It will happen when i try to boot up, and when i do get into windows, after 20 minutes i'll blue screen and that message pops up.. I have done two diagnostics and both tell me the HDD is fine, but i think its toast. Any suggestions?
     
    kyomagi, Jun 18, 2011
    #1
  2. RioRyan

    RioRyan Notebook Consultant

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    Does it freeze up for lengthy amounts of time (eg. things stop responding but mouse still moves) before the blue screens? That's what happened to mine and they replaced the hard drive and RAM and I haven't had trouble since.

    You can get around the no bootable device error by pressing F12 at boot and manually selecting HDD
     
    RioRyan, Jun 18, 2011
    #2
  3. kyomagi

    kyomagi Notebook Enthusiast

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    The HDD was bad, got a western digital from bestbuy that was 500gb + a free extra 140gb (woot) and works perfectly
     
    kyomagi, Jun 18, 2011
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  4. takeabyte

    takeabyte Notebook Evangelist

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    Talk to dell and replace the dead 500gb drive, then you'll have 1gb + 140gb :p
     
    takeabyte, Jun 18, 2011
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  5. Voodooi

    Voodooi AFK for a while...

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    Why didn't you get a next-business day tech to come over and replace the HD instead of buying one from best buy? :p
     
    Voodooi, Jun 18, 2011
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  6. kyomagi

    kyomagi Notebook Enthusiast

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    actaully im returning the one from bestbuy. I popped the new HD in, installed windows and everything worked fine for a few hours. I then restored from the backup i had and BOOM new HDD, same issue. Then i wondered. I installed the old HD, the boot menu and BIOS did not see it. restarted and wanted to reload windows.

    The bios still did not see the drive, but windows set up did. Problem is, the main partition was showing a error and windows would not install. I formatted, deleted each partition and restarted

    BIOS reads the HD, windows set up reads it, been on a fresh install for 3 hours no issues, before 10-20 minutes, blue screen, error.

    Ran the second HD in a enclosure on a netbook to see what was wrong.

    Sectors - fine, HD over all - pass.

    Virus test - Uh-oh

    This whole time i had a boot disk virus causing BSOD and causing the system to not see it.

    So if you have this issue and its brand new, try and reinstall windows and re-do all the apps/drivers new or restore to 3-4 days before the error happened
     
    kyomagi, Jun 19, 2011
    #6