Help with possible bad hard drive, system won't boot...

Hi, I have a 5 year old Alienware M5500. Intel Centrino (solo) 2.0 GHz, running Windows XP Media Center.

I decided that it was time (been 8 months) to refresh the system and clean everything out so I back up my data and proceeded with the Alienware Respawn (Norton Ghost Image) that came with my laptop. I installed it like I have multiple times before and it runs all the way through the clone process and says the process has been completed. When the system is restarted, it boots to the Windows XP screen, but never gets to Welcome Screen. It just shuts off or continually reboots and gets to the same spot and reboots or shuts down. I went ahead and redid the respawn three times to make sure that something hadn't gone awry during the cloning process.

I am not sure what is going on. I am suspecting that maybe the hard drive has gone bad, or has bad sectors that is causing the system not to boot. I however don't know how to check or confirm this outside of Windows with the checkdisk utility. I am scoured the BIOS menu but haven't seen anything useful.

What can I try to get this rig running again? I do have a copy of Windows 7 Pro that I purchased through my school months ago that I tried to install when I last did the respawn, but I was unable to get it to work. Maybe it's an upgrade version and isn't compatible, gave the unknown software error or something after it had completely installed and restarted. I do remember having to complete the respawn a few time last time to get it too work. But the system has been fine since. Now I can't get it to boot...

Any help, suggestions, or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

USB 2.0 to IDE SATA 5.25 S-ATA/2.5/3.5 Adapter Cable - eBay (item 320555093157 end time Feb-23-11 19:24:42 PST) good thing.
Do you have another computer?
Try to format hard drive. Then make couple partitions using acronis or partition discs.
try to install different windows to different partitions


NEW SATA 2nd HDD caddy for 12.7mm Universal CD/DVD-ROM - eBay (item 290457963923 end time Feb-21-11 01:56:48 PST) you can buy sata HDD and use that thing. And install windows on new HDD if yours is really broken

 

Hey JamesD thanks for responding.
I do have an older desktop and an M11x. Maybe I can hookup an IDE from the desktop and run the 2.5" as a slave drive and do the disk check that way. I will give it a try, not sure if they are compatible though. Thanks for your help.

 

sata drives are definitely compatible, but not sure about IDE. Thats why I gave a link with connector.

 

Yeah, the IDE isn't compatible you were right... I ordered the connector just in case. However, when I got home, I removed the hard drive to see if it would fit in the desktop, and when I relized the IDE was different, I put the HD back in and was going to try the Respawn one more time. To my surprise the Laptop booted and I was able to setup windows and am currently updating everything... But one problem I could use a hand with...

The keyboard isn't working 100%, some of the keys (a,s,d,f,j,k,l all don't work. Which is weird because they are in a row and all worked before.) aren't recognized, they worked fine before and the laptop works fine with my wireless keyboard attached...

Is my keyboard fried? I looked for an "updated" driver to no avail on alienware's website. Is there anything else I can try besides getting another wired/wireless keyboard?

Thanks again for the help!

 

at first check your bios version. I suspect that new Windows XP was SP 3 right? If you did not update BIOS it could not let it be installed correctly.
Respawn wouldn't clean your HD fine. It is better to make clean install and install every your software manually.

Where were your hard drive? Could you spoil motherboard or connecting cable of keyboard somehow?

Try to boot from CD/DVD and to try type smth in not installed system. Like in command prompt or else. If they works - your keyboard and motherboard are fine

 

Yeah, I do need to reformat and test the hard drive for bad sectors. As soon as the USB to IDE cable arrives from Hong Kong I plan on doing that. However, in the mean time, I would like to figure out if this keyboard is really messed up. My wife said that a few keys weren't working right before I performed Respawn the first time (she uses it everyday, I use my M11x).

So I guess the keys weren't responsive before the reboot and still aren't, which makes me think it is a faulty keyboard (the hard drive is in a separate compartment and wouldn't have messed with the wires for the keyboard).

How can I test it outside of windows? I don't think the bios has any locations were you type does it? And can you still enter msdos outside of Windows XP? I know I used to do it back before Windows 95, but obviously thats been years... lol

Thanks for help!

 

So I just tried KeyTest from passmark software, and it confirmed that asdfjkl and my left arrow aren't recognized, it shows all the other keys being depressed and shows a BIOS and Windows Key Code for them. I not really sure why some of the keys have failed and the rest work fine... I just don't want to drop 20 bucks on a new board if the keyboard isn't the problem...

I don't really know how the keys are linked either, why left arrow would fail for example, hardly ever use it...

any ideas? Thanks!

Update: I just uninstalled the keyboard via device drivers and let windows reinstall it, but the same keys still don't work...

 

About keyboard. Perhaps liquid somehow was poured.
In XP things are like in your Win95 But you should put inside not a floppy but a Windows XP disc. Don't remember how but choose to fix Windows XP option (or similar) where you can write dos commands.

Just interesting, have you ever updated BIOS? I strongly doubt that it is connected to hdd or keyboard but as I told before it could make influence on XP SP3