[Yassen]

Hello there, I have a Dell Inspiron M5010, with Windows 7, had it for a little less than a year, which makes this suck more, but anyways, onto the problem.

Put it simply, it won't start anymore, if I try to start it normally, it reaches the "Starting Windows" screen, but no logo will appear, and it will be stuck there, a simple click off the power button will shut it off (Usually have to hold it for a bit.).
If I launch Startup Repair Mode, it just gives me a "Windows is Loading files" message, then goes onto a screen, similar to the regular "Starting Windows" screen, but just with a loading bar, loads half-way, the it just skips to the blue "log on" screen, except there are no options whatsoever, I can move my mouse around, but there's nothing to click.

If I try Safe mode, it just gets to the "Loading Windows Files Please Wait..." Screen and that's it, only after a few minutes it'll just restart itself, but still the same as before.

I tried Running Diagnostics, and sure enoughm I got an error shortly after:

Hard Drive - DST Short Test
Test Result: Fail
Error Code 2000 - 0146
Msg: Hard Drive 0 - self test log contains Previous errors.

After, I went to look for specific Symptoms in the Diagnostics Utility Partition, and most tests Passed normally, only 3 kept failing in "Hard Drive Errors" and "Cannot Boot the OS" (Same 3 tests on both)

SATA DISK S/N = 2WX21YTZ Drive Self Test (long):
Error Code 0F00:075D
Msg - Dst Self-test Read Error

-----

SATA DISK S/N = 2WX21YTZ Drive Self Test (short):
Error Code 0F00:065D
Msg: Dst Self-test Read Error

-----

SATA DISK S/N = 5WX21YTZ Verify Test: (2 errors on this one.)
Error Code 0F00:1A44
Msg: Disk - Block 31471071

Error Code 0F00:1A44
Msg: Disk - Block 34619697


That's pretty much all I can get.
Which seems to point all to the Hard Drive, hopefully its fixable...?
(Which I doubt, but still, you know?)

Even if I can't save the hard drive, would there be any way, even if temporary to get it to work for some time to copy some files?
I got some recent stuff I didn't get to back up that i'd like to save if its possible.

Lastly, if its not possible to save it, any good Hard Drives you would reccomend, that I could use to replace this one?
Any and all help is appreciated!

[coastie65]

Hi and welcome to the forums. Good job on the testing. I would have to agree that the Hdd is probably bad and needs replacing. Hopefully you made recovery disks. Just get a good 2.5 inch Hdd that runs at 7200 RPM ( most, if not all laptops, install the 5400 RPM variety ). A Seagate Momentus would be good. Personally, I would go with this one: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822148591

This post has been edited by coastie65: 13 March 2012 - 03:09 PM

[LiveBrianD]

If you can't get into Windows, burn a Ubuntu disc, boot from that, and use it to transfer your files to something else (external hard drive, thumb drive, computer on the network, etc). Personally I like WD hard drives, though I guess Seagate isn't bad either.

[Yassen]

coastie65, on 13 March 2012 - 03:05 PM, said:

Hi and welcome to the forums. Good job on the testing. I would have to agree that the Hdd is probably bad and needs replacing. Hopefully you made recovery disks. Just get a good 2.5 inch Hdd that runs at 7200 RPM ( most, if not all laptops, install the 5400 RPM variety ). A Seagate Momentus would be good. Personally, I would go with this one: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822148591

Thank you, my brother highly reccomended these forums, so I thought I should go here first.
Also, that's what I was affraid of, thankfully I managed to make the recoverey disk recently, so that's good.

So it doesn't have to be some super specific kind of Hdd?
Great, that'll certainly save a lot of trouble!
Also Thank you on the reccomendation, I'll check it out.

LiveBrianD, on 13 March 2012 - 04:06 PM, said:

If you can't get into Windows, burn a Ubuntu disc, boot from that, and use it to transfer your files to something else (external hard drive, thumb drive, computer on the network, etc). Personally I like WD hard drives, though I guess Seagate isn't bad either.

Oh, interesting, I'll definitelly try to give that a shot!
Its gonna have to wait until my brother returns from work to use his laptop for that, as I am currently posting from the PS3 browser, granted, not the best for online browser, but a lot better than nothing.

This post has been edited by Yassen: 13 March 2012 - 04:24 PM

[LiveBrianD]

Yep, a 2.5" SATA that's not more than 9.5mm (this fits most laptop drives on the market now).

Fyi, you can run firefox and libreoffice from the ubuntu disc too, just in case.

[coastie65]

Yassen, on 13 March 2012 - 04:20 PM, said:

coastie65, on 13 March 2012 - 03:05 PM, said:

Hi and welcome to the forums. Good job on the testing. I would have to agree that the Hdd is probably bad and needs replacing. Hopefully you made recovery disks. Just get a good 2.5 inch Hdd that runs at 7200 RPM ( most, if not all laptops, install the 5400 RPM variety ). A Seagate Momentus would be good. Personally, I would go with this one: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822148591

Oh, interesting, I'll definitelly try to give that a shot!
Its gonna have to wait until my brother returns from work to use his laptop for that, as I am currently posting from the PS3 browser, granted, not the best for online browser, but a lot better than nothing.

Oh Man, I have done that and isn't a lot of fun. Terrible for online browsing and posting.

[LiveBrianD]

You should see the browser on my dumbphone. Let's put it this way - Internet Explorer 2 isn't much worse (and it can't render ANYTHING properly nowadays, often crashing when you try to load something).

[Yassen]

LiveBrianD, on 13 March 2012 - 04:38 PM, said:

Yep, a 2.5" SATA that's not more than 9.5mm (this fits most laptop drives on the market now).

Fyi, you can run firefox and libreoffice from the ubuntu disc too, just in case.

Good to know, will definitelly help being able to access any browser from there.

coastie65, on 13 March 2012 - 05:28 PM, said:

Oh Man, I have done that and isn't a lot of fun. Terrible for online browsing and posting.

Eh, its not soo horrible once you get used to it, which I had to for like 2 years, considering it was all I had before I could get a laptop. xD
Plus, it got updated recently, so it can do a lot more stuff it couldn't a while back, it can even play livestreams now, so at least I can still watch those meanwhile.

LiveBrianD, on 13 March 2012 - 05:44 PM, said:

You should see the browser on my dumbphone. Let's put it this way - Internet Explorer 2 isn't much worse (and it can't render ANYTHING properly nowadays, often crashing when you try to load something).

Ooh, that sounds pretty bad, never was much of a phone person myself, outside of calling and such, of course, well, you know what I mean, not one to buy games or use it for all those things they keep adding nowdays. xP


Thanks for the help so far, guys, really appreciate it!
(Very quick help at that, too, I can see why its reccomended in here!)

I'll try that Ubuntu stuff later and post the results, hopefully able to get it working and all.

[LincolnSpector]

Hi, Yassen, and welcome to the forums.

Before you buy a new HDD, I recommend you test the one you have. The problem may be something else.

For the testing, I recommend Parted Magic. It's a live Linux distro (like Ubuntu), but it has a very good drive diagnostic program (as well as a partition manager). You'll need to use another computer to create either a bootable CD or a bootable flash drive.

And as with Ubuntu, you can also use it to move your files to another drive.

Another thought: You say that you've had this laptop for less than a year. Is it under warranty?

Lincoln

[coastie65]

LincolnSpector, on 14 March 2012 - 07:12 AM, said:

Hi, Yassen, and welcome to the forums.

Before you buy a new HDD, I recommend you test the one you have. The problem may be something else.

For the testing, I recommend Parted Magic. It's a live Linux distro (like Ubuntu), but it has a very good drive diagnostic program (as well as a partition manager). You'll need to use another computer to create either a bootable CD or a bootable flash drive.

And as with Ubuntu, you can also use it to move your files to another drive.

Another thought: You say that you've had this laptop for less than a year. Is it under warranty?

Lincoln

Hey Lincoln, In his initial post, it seems that he did run some tests that failed and the reason I said that it was probably time for a new Hdd.

[Yassen]

Ok, I got the Ubuntu Live CD and started it, unfortunatelly, now it keeps getting stuck in "Waiting up to 60 more seconds for network configuration..."

I've waited for like 10 mins on that screen and nothing...

Any idea on what's going on?

After a while, if I press anything, it'll say "Remove instalation Media" (if any) and pres Enter."
If I do, it'll just restart.

_EDIT_

I tried again, left it there for like 30 mins, this time it even didn't get to that screen, it just froze at theloading screen, with "Ubuntu" in the center, after a while I pressed "Esc" and it showed a dark screen with a list of things, most shower errors, such as:

end request: I/0 error, dev sr0, sector 207628
Buffer I/0 error on device sr0, logical block 51907
(multiple times)
SQUASHFS error: squashfs_read_data failed to read block 0x64cef47
(once)
end_request: I/0 error, dev sr0, sector 207636
(multiple times)
SQUASHFS error: Unable to read fragment chache entry [64cef47]
SQUASHFS error: Unable to read page, block 64cef47, size d1af
(multiple times.)

This post has been edited by Yassen: 14 March 2012 - 04:18 PM

[Dellinsp531]

The error message is saying there is a problem with the CD.

Select the option to check CD for defects in Ubuntu.

If it finds defects, burn another CD and check it again.

If it does not find defects, try this parameters in the boot:
https://help.ubuntu..../BootParameters

If that still does not work, than download puppy linux. It is a smaller distro of linux and see if it boots better. Also you can put the puppy linux on a USB flash drive if you have one.

[LincolnSpector]

Dellinsp531, on 15 March 2012 - 05:27 AM, said:

The error message is saying there is a problem with the CD.

Select the option to check CD for defects in Ubuntu.

If it finds defects, burn another CD and check it again.

If it does not find defects, try this parameters in the boot:
https://help.ubuntu..../BootParameters

If that still does not work, than download puppy linux. It is a smaller distro of linux and see if it boots better. Also you can put the puppy linux on a USB flash drive if you have one.

My mistake.

Lincoln

[coastie65]

LincolnSpector, on 15 March 2012 - 07:06 AM, said:

Dellinsp531, on 15 March 2012 - 05:27 AM, said:

The error message is saying there is a problem with the CD.

Select the option to check CD for defects in Ubuntu.

If it finds defects, burn another CD and check it again.

If it does not find defects, try this parameters in the boot:
https://help.ubuntu..../BootParameters

If that still does not work, than download puppy linux. It is a smaller distro of linux and see if it boots better. Also you can put the puppy linux on a USB flash drive if you have one.

My mistake.

Lincoln

It happens. I sometimes read right past some pertinent information.

[Yassen]

Alright, I searched around, and messed with some of the setings, and after a while, I managed to get Ubuntu working, and I managed to back up the stuff I wanted, so all that is done, thanks for telling me about it, would've probably lost all that otherwise!

Now then, since that is taken care of, I have a few questions, mostly, about the new HDD.

More specifically, what should I be looking for.
I know you said that most 2.5" HDDs will work, but now I'm wondering what exactly should I be looking for in a hard drive.
You reccomended one before, but if I can't manage to find one like that, I'm wondering what should I be loking for, because honestly, when it comes to hardware, I'm completely lost other than for the bare basics.

For example, I know the Capacity is for, well, how much memory it has, basically, but will my laptop support any size, or just anything within its original range, of 500GB?

The Cache and RPM, those two I have no idea what they are, and I wouldn't want to buy a crappy drive just because it had nice capacity, you know?

Also, I hear something about SSDs (Solid State Drives?) and Hybrids, what exactly are those, and does it make a difference?

As I said, i know very little about hardware, so any and all specifications would REALLY help!

[LiveBrianD]

Capacity: Whatever you need for your files, plus some for the OS. 500GB is good. Cache doesn't matter too much. RPM doesn't matter much either, and 7200RPM ones are faster (but generate more heat). You can get an SSD if you want, and they're pretty fast, but you loose a lot of capacity and pay more. Hybrid drives have a hard disk and a little SSD cache to give you the best of both. You can use one if you want.

So... just remember that it MUST be 2.5" (most notebook drives are this), SATA (most are this nowadays anyway), and must not be taller than 9.5mm in most laptops (again, most drives are this way. Some 1TB drives are 12.5mm though). Other than that, it doesn't really matter.

[Yassen]

LiveBrianD, on 15 March 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

Capacity: Whatever you need for your files, plus some for the OS. 500GB is good. Cache doesn't matter too much. RPM doesn't matter much either, and 7200RPM ones are faster (but generate more heat). You can get an SSD if you want, and they're pretty fast, but you loose a lot of capacity and pay more. Hybrid drives have a hard disk and a little SSD cache to give you the best of both. You can use one if you want.

Ah, I see, so it doesn't make THAT much of a difference which I choose.
I think I'll stik with a 5400RPM then, since as much as I'd like that speed, the extra heat would be no good, specially since i like to have it on for long periods of time, yes I have a cooling mat, but that can only help so much, specially since the heat is about to arrive, and it gets quite hot as it is, don't need that extra heat just for some more speed.

LiveBrianD, on 15 March 2012 - 02:45 PM, said:

So... just remember that it MUST be 2.5" (most notebook drives are this), SATA (most are this nowadays anyway), and must not be taller than 9.5mm in most laptops (again, most drives are this way. Some 1TB drives are 12.5mm though). Other than that, it doesn't really matter.

Noted,so mostly is the measurements of the HDD that matter then.

Any specific brands that you'd reccomend, or that are more durable, or any that I should avoid?

[LiveBrianD]

WD is my first choice, and Seagate isn't bad either. Those are the two major players anyway. (Samsung is also good, though they are now a part of Seagate.) I can't really think of any brands to avoid, though I've heard Hitachis and Toshibas aren't as good (on the other hand, I have a Hitachi in my laptop, and it works just fine).

[alishathomaz]

Follow these guidelines::

Remove unused programs
Install and run antispyware software
Free up wasted space with Disk Cleanup tool
Defragment your hard disk drive
Disconnect unused network connections:
Click Start, and then click My Computer.

On the Tools menu, click Disconnect Network Drive.

Select the network drives that you no longer need, and then click OK.

Stop Unwanted startup programs:

Start > Run > write msconfig > Click on StartUp tab
Deselect the programs you want to stop

[Yassen]

alishathomaz, on 21 March 2012 - 10:39 PM, said:

Follow these guidelines::

Remove unused programs
Install and run antispyware software
Free up wasted space with Disk Cleanup tool
Defragment your hard disk drive
Disconnect unused network connections:
Click Start, and then click My Computer.

On the Tools menu, click Disconnect Network Drive.

Select the network drives that you no longer need, and then click OK.

Stop Unwanted startup programs:

Start > Run > write msconfig > Click on StartUp tab
Deselect the programs you want to stop

Sorry, but I believe you may be answering to the wrong thread here.
Unless you want me to do that from Ubuntu, not sure if I can, but I could give it a try if that's what you meant.