please tell me if this problem with my laptop means my HD is bad.

hi experts, i have a dell laptop and i have this problem.

the laptop froze on me so i powered it off and tried to turn it back on but nothing comes up on the screen. the power indicator is on. the harddrive indicator stays on for like a few seconds and then turns off and then nothing happens.

i had a dell tech come and he installed a new motherboard and same thing. he told me to send it back to dell depot.

i really hope this is not the harddrive as i have a lot of important information. please give me your opinion.

 

Well, what concerns me the most is that they'll probably do a clean wipe of the PC and put the factory image back on in order to troubleshoot. Don't send it in with the drive if you can avoid it, and possibly get an external enclosure and copy the data over to another PC for now.

 

Well heres the solution to this data problem


Back up


Why is it Dell always assumes the mobo is the issue. Every problem i hear they solve with a new Mobo..

take the harddrive out and put it into the fridge then quickly stick it back into ur machine and power up. IT should work long enough for you to get you're data off.

If it is a hardware fault. The only thing u can really do is go to drivesavers.com

 

But Greg if it is the drive? This is one of the problems with XP and beyound. Can't swap with a friend.

 

don't put the drive in the fridge. Thats only something you do as a last resort.

And no the problem is not the hard drive becasue if it was the hard drive you would get an error on the screen saying something like "no boot device found" or "could not read boot sector". Sounds like graphics card or maybe ram to me seeing as they have already tried motherboard or could be the screen.

Go to a computer store and spend $10 on a 2.5" hard drive enclosure then go home take the drive out of your laptop, put it in the enclosure and then plug it into another computer and copy all the files off. Its quick, simple and not expensive.

If you get the problem that i think powerpack is talking about and XP starts telling you that you don;t have permission to copy the files. Make your your on an Admin account and goto the properties of the files it won't copy, make sure inheritance is turned on then goto take ownership of files. Take ownership of the files and then they will do whatever you want becasue now they are your files on the new computer and the XP protection crap isn't a problem.

If you have any issues post back, and good luck

 

Before you buy the enclosure you need to check if the HDD has a PATA (IDE) or SATA connector. PATA has 44 pins in 2 rows while the SATA is a strip with some contacts on each side. Or, if you read the HDD model number, you can the look up the specs. If the computer is older than 2 years then it is probably PATA and must current production uses SATA.

You might be able to find an enclosure such as this which takes both PATA and SATA.

John