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"hard disk drive failure"

hard disk drive failure hard disk wont boot disk failure disk drive hdd external hard drive internal hard drive dell pendrive

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#1 daileybread411

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Posted 18 November 2013 - 02:16 PM

 

i have a computer (DELL inspiron 530s) that recently has been saying hard disk drive failure when i try to start it up. it gives me the option to press F1 to continue or press F2 for setup. when i press F1 to continue a black screen will eventually pop up and say

No boot device available press ENTER key to retry

SATA-0: Installed
SATA-1: Installed
SATA-4: None
SATA-5: None



im not very experienced at working on PCs. thought about taking my DELL latitude D610 laptop hard drive and hooking it to the desktop to find out if the hard drive has gone bad or if something else happened when i replaced the power supply. or maybe its something else i dont know really. like i said im very inexperienced when it comes to PCs. when i replaced that PSU that was the first time i had ever opened a PC up and worked on the inside.

my wife was the first to experience this happen while i was at work. she said she didnt know what to do. but i guess it eventually did boot up completely after she went into setup and pressed (ESC)to exit. she said that she didnt mess with any of the settings. i havent had the same luck. i have tried turning it off and on a few times and hitting enter over and over again but still get the same results

 

The inspiron was givin to me a few weeks ago. the person that gave it to me told me it needed the power supply replaced. it has been working for days after i replaced the PSU. we have watched movies on youtube and other web surfing. when i replaced the PSU the first thing that i did was wipe the PC to its original factory settings. i think its called a full PC restore. it worked fine before that just had alot of stuff on it from the previous owner. worked fine after i restored it also (after hours of updates lol). oh yea the dvd rom was jammed shut. got it to come out and put a dvd in it to see if it would work and it didnt. i think i remember it slowed the PC way down also but wouldnt play dvd. not sure if thats helpful info. just tryin to give all that i know about this pc. (which isnt much since i have only had it for a few weeks)

 

tools that i have at my disposal:

 

toshiba satellite A215(what im on now and what i mainly use),

 

dell latitude D610,

 

HP 530,

 

IMAC G3(RED),

 

4GB USB flash drive (tried to make this pendrive bootable but i cant figure it out. i was hoping to try to boot from the USB and then i would know its the HDD thats bad and not something else(at least thats what i was hopin i would find)),

 

500 GB toshiba external hard drive (has all my pics and videos and music back up on it)

 

I guess to sum it all up: i want to figure out why my Dell inspiron 530s will not boot now. i want to know if its the hard drive that went bad for sure before i invest in buying another one, or if i messed something else up in it etc etc....

 thank you for any help that might be offered,

Aaron

 

 

 

 



#2 Wonko the Sane

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Posted 18 November 2013 - 02:58 PM

The combination of:
"hard disk drive failure when i try to start it up"
and
"No boot device available press ENTER key to retry"

plainly means that when the PC boots it's BIOS cannot communicate with the hard disk.

Normally this can happen for several reasons, most common being:

  1. failed connection of the data bus (very common, SATA cables do have a tendency to fail/connectors to dislocate)
  2. failed connection of the power line (less common, but still common enough)
  3. failed hard drive (or "bricked")
  4. failed spin up of the disk drive (stiction or stickiness of the bearing) quite rare

The normal troubleshooting path is to:

  1. check, by disconnecting and re-connecting, the SATA cable (on BOTH ends, i.e. both on the hard disk and on the motherboard) if the connectros are well seated, possibly test with a replacement SATA cable 
  2. check, by disconnecting and re-connecting the power cable to the hard disk if power connector is well seated

The fact that it worked again at least once may mean that it is one of the above "connection" problems.

 

Next check, by powering the PC up if the disk spins, if you keep a couple of fingers on the hard disk while powering up the PC you should feel the vibration of the disk

spinning up, or more commonly you can hear it's motor spinning. If you cannot feel or hear it spin up, you can disassemble it and power it up while holding the hard disk in your hand, if you try rotating it in your hand from "flat" to 90 degrees and back, you should feel the gyroscopic effect of the spindle rotating.

 

If nothing of the above works, next step is testing the hard disk through one of those SATA/USB adapters/or external cases, connected to another PC (or, if you have another desktop, connecting the hard disk on a secondary SATA port of the other desktop).

 

 

:cheers:

Wonko


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#3 steve6375

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Posted 18 November 2013 - 06:00 PM

I would add that since the DVD is not working (but appears still connected as SATA1) you should first disconnect the power cable and SATA cable from the DVD drive. Just in case this is causing power problems (e.g. HDD and DVD are using the same power cable and there is a short on the DVD PCB).

As SATA0 is listed in the BIOS, it looks like the HDD is powered and the SATA cable does at least work to some extent. It may be a spin-up issue with the HDD - if so try twisting the drive immediately after power-on (i.e. keep it flat on the desk and twist in a clockwise direction quickly).

You could also try booting from a bootable USB flash drive and running a diagnostic or SMART utility on the internal HDD. Is the make and model of HDD listed by the BIOS?


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#4 daileybread411

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Posted 18 November 2013 - 11:26 PM

woo hoo.. im so happy to have some legitamate direction that i can comprehend and begin to follow. i will commense testing asap. i have three children and a baby due dec. 3rd....so testing will be over a period of time lol. ill try to get into the computer and run those tests as time permits. (hopefully soon) i will definatly keep you guys updated and let you know my results as soon as i have some. THANKS SO MUCH for your advice

aaron



#5 homes32

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Posted 21 November 2013 - 04:42 PM

after you test the connectors as wonko instructed above; the DELL usually has diagnostics available by pressing F12 to get the boot menu and selecting Hard Drive Test or Diagnostics ( wording may very depending on versions etc)

if the drive is connected properly and the DST (drive short test) fails then you have a bad hard drive. any messages on startup saying something like "Premature Drive Failure" / "SMART failed" / "Hard Disk Failure" is a bad drive in almost all cases.



#6 daileybread411

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Posted 25 November 2013 - 09:05 PM

allright ive got good news. i unplugged the sata and power cables and plugged them back in, restarted the PC and it worked. but now it says

 

Diskette drive 0 seek failure

 

 

Press F1 to continue, F2 to enter setup

 

 

this message did not come up until recently. i think it popped up actually when i was trying to figure out how to make a bootable pendrive. i had switched some things around in the bios to make it load from the external drive. im pretty sure that is all i did so i just selected the load defaults in the Bios screen but that didnt make the message go away. i cant think of what else it might be. does any1 have any ideas?

 

THANK YOU WONKO THE SANE for your help and i appreciate every1 elses input also. im glad there are forums like these to be able to connect with other more experienced people. im really glad to have the PC at least running again also.

 

would just like to know why this new message is popping up though

 

Thank you for any help offered

Aaron



#7 saddlejib

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Posted 26 November 2013 - 06:07 PM

Do you have a floppy drive on your computer.?

If not disable in bios.







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