when i try running the recovery on my laptop, it says that the hard drive isn't recognized. its crashed before and i was able to recover it, but i can't get it to recognize the hard drive. any suggestions?

11/10/2006 8:04:20 PM

sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but a basic diagnosis of that information points towards a dead hard drive that needs replacing.

the only way it's not going to be a replace issue is if you can provide us with any other error codes that you might be seeing. since you've given us no further details (ie, how old the laptop is, what make/model it is, what were you doing when it stopped working, etc) i'm just going to assume that's it.

how to buy a new one? you can pick them up at newegg for great prices compared to any brick and mortar store. look for 2.5" drives, then pick a size that fits your budget. preferably, you should make sure it's highly positive rated with lots of reviews.

your laptop vendor can supply you with picture documentation on how to swap a hard drive, if not, ask us and we'll do what we can to help.

[Edited on November 10, 2006 at 8:20 PM. Reason : .]

11/10/2006 8:19:44 PM

its a dell inspiron 8600 its just barely over 2 years old the first time it crashed was about 5 mos ago. i installed a program when it shut down. when i tried to fix it, i ran chkdsk /r and it repeatedly told me that there was an unrecoverable error, so i was going to just reformat the disk and reinstall windows, and thats when it quit recognizing the hard drive. i figured it was gone, but i thought id see if anyone on here knew any other option than just scrapping it. like is there any way to get back any lost information on it? im getting a new tablet laptop anyways, but id like to be able to use or sell the old one.
oh hey, anyone have a tablet suggestion? i can't figure out which brand i want, ive read the cnet reviews, but they didn't really help me. i need something light and durable.

11/10/2006 9:03:40 PM

i got inspiron 2650 and that shit is STILL running strong after 4 years

many a time i thought it was gonna be dead

11/10/2006 9:12:02 PM

it was a great computer! stupid avg free...never download that shit! the automatic update is what i was installing.

11/10/2006 9:22:52 PM

oh i dont download stuff like that anyway

i get the tried and true shit

11/10/2006 9:25:15 PM

it had a ton of positive ratings, even cnet gave it a good rating. the cnet testers probably didnt have it on their computer for very long tho. check the negative user ratings on there though, a lot of other people described similar situations

11/10/2006 10:14:09 PM

anyways, anybody have another suggestion as to saving the poor dead laptop?

11/10/2006 10:18:41 PM

well the hard drive has nothing to do with the laptop's functionality, and hard drives are known to fail within a year (very rare), 2-3 years (not unlikely), but have been seen to last for 5+ years with no issues. generally you should expect a hard drive to fail and have your data consistently backed up. hard drives do not need encouragement to fail, and that makes everyone sad.

once you replace the hard drive, you'll have a fully working laptop again, hard drives are really easy to swap out. especially in the dell's. here is the how-to:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins8500/en/8600cr/sm/hdd.htm#1123687

here are some good hard drive choices, choose the first if you're concerned about your budget, pick the second if you're willing to spend a bit more money for better performance and higher capacity:

SAMSUNG Spinpoint M Series MP0402H, 40GB, 5400 RPM, $45.99+S&H
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822152501

HITACHI Travelstar 7K100, 80GB, 7200 RPM, $99.99+S&H
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822146047

here's a link to them all on Newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Order=POPULARITY&Page=1&Category=15&Nty=1&N=2010150380&Submit=ENE&SubCategory=380

i'll get back to this thread in the morning if you have more questions.

[Edited on November 10, 2006 at 10:50 PM. Reason : .]

11/10/2006 10:45:36 PM

Quote :

" well the hard drive has nothing to do with the laptop's functionality, and hard drives are known to fail within a year (very rare), 2-3 years (not unlikely), but have been seen to last for 5+ years with no issues. generally you should expect a hard drive to fail and have your data consistently backed up. hard drives do not need encouragement to fail, and that makes everyone sad. "

This statement is not only wrong, but terribley misinformed. But, I'm not going to intervene. I'm just going to sit back and let you have the floor.

The last thing I would do is jump the gun and say "he needs a new drive". He might just need professional reformatting. If so, let me know via PM. But I do understand that you just want to help this guy. So I'm not trying to bash you or anything.


[Edited on November 10, 2006 at 11:00 PM. Reason : .]

11/10/2006 10:54:46 PM

^^thanks, i kind of figured id have to buy a new hard drive, i was just hoping for another option.

^Please quit calling me a guy! but, what do you know about professional reformatting?

11/10/2006 11:05:02 PM

good try Earl, but if you would've read my first post you would've seen that i distinctly said:

Quote :

"....a basic diagnosis of that information points towards a dead hard drive that needs replacing. the only way it's not going to be a replace issue is if you can provide us with any other error codes that you might be seeing."

go ahead, give me another reason why a hard drive just stops being recognized and it's not actually dead.

i gave the most likely solution and even said i might be wrong, but thanks for playing.

11/10/2006 11:06:08 PM

^^Ohh I'm so very sorry. I definitely did not mean to call you a guy. What I was saying was, you need professional diagnostics ran on your pc to verify that's the problem. Your pc is only 2 years old, so I HIGHLY doubt that you need a new drive. I own a 5100 and it's well over 4 yrs old and I haven't even sniffed that problem.

You maybe just need formating, that can only be done under certain circumstances. That's why I think the deal is.

Quote :

"go ahead, give me another reason why a hard drive just stops being recognized and it's not actually dead. "

She could have a very serious virus problem. She did DOWNLOAD avg

[Edited on November 10, 2006 at 11:13 PM. Reason : .]

11/10/2006 11:09:54 PM

first harddrive i ever got for my dell was a travelstar made by ibm

that bitch lasted just shy of 3 years...and that was with some heavy ass usage

[Edited on November 10, 2006 at 11:10 PM. Reason : .]

11/10/2006 11:10:33 PM

stay away from Maxtor (if they even make laptop hds), I've had two crap out on me with little to no warning. That little 'click........click....clickpop" is a very very bad thing. My laptop's Seagate hasn't given me any trouble and thats even with lots of re-partitioning (for dual-boot) and a lot of usage.

11/10/2006 11:56:24 PM

seagate is the way to go via harddrive, IMO

11/10/2006 11:58:10 PM

my desktop has a maxtor and a seagate, they've both lasted a pretty long time, the seagate is like 7 years old and the maxtor is 4 or 5. the laptop made that click click pop noise you speak of before dying! i had never heard a computer make that noise before!

11/11/2006 12:04:19 AM

Quote :

"He might just need professional reformatting."

What is reformatting? What is professional reformatting? Never heard of either. Kinda interested in them.

Most likely, a new hard drive is needed. Good way to test if this is the case is find somebody with an external usb case and 2.5 laptop HD adapter (or just a 2.5" external USB) to test it independently on a separate system.

11/11/2006 5:54:10 AM

'click of death' it is called, usually a drive head crash.......pretty irrecoverable but of course just a rough diagnosis

11/11/2006 3:53:18 PM

Quote :

"What is reformatting? What is professional reformatting? Never heard of either. Kinda interested in them. "

So you've never heard of formatting a hard drive???? Never????Never in your 23yrs on this earth travis have you heard of formatting a hard drive? Gosh dude, this trolling thing has taken over your life.

[Edited on November 11, 2006 at 10:04 PM. Reason : .]

11/11/2006 10:01:30 PM

My HP runnin win 98 SE 128 RAM still runnin strong 6 years later

11/11/2006 10:20:29 PM

I'm a professional and I'll format your hard drive... for 50$.

[Edited on November 11, 2006 at 11:34 PM. Reason : you need professional reformatting]

11/11/2006 11:32:50 PM

i'm a "professional" too (whatever that is). if you would rather try a "professional reformatting" (whatever that is) before buying a new one, i'll take a look at it and let you know, then provide said services. However since you said you heard clicks, it's as i said the first time, most likely dead.

on top of all that, i'll help a college student for free, it's the right thing to do.

11/12/2006 2:20:45 AM

Quote :

"professional reformatting"

Earl, I have a good idea what formatting is, I've never heard of reformatting. If the person is formatting a second or third time, the term might be applicable, but that isn't necessarily the case here. And no idea how the term "professional" applies here. Big difference between somebody with an A+ Certification, somebody with knowledge/training in data forensics, and somebody with knowledge/training to do physical data recovery. Please clarify which you believe would be best for this person.

boowex, by chance do you still have a warranty on the drive?

11/12/2006 7:57:35 AM

Quote :

"He might just need professional reformatting."

professional reformatting, hahahhaha. good one.

Quote :

"I own a 5100 and it's well over 4 yrs old and I haven't even sniffed that problem"

right, because your anecdotal story is highly relevant in this thread.
Oh, and your 5100 hasn't even been out 4 years, much less [b]well over[b] 4 years. It wasn't even announced until March 2003, so you do the math. Might as well exaggerate on your anecdotal story though. http://news.com.com/Dell+touts+900+notebook/2100-1005_3-990784.html

Quote :

" Your pc is only 2 years old, so I HIGHLY doubt that you need a new drive."

You know so much about PCs huh? With a 2 year old PC, and the information he gave, you HIGHLY doubt its the hard drive?

Quote :

"She could have a very serious virus problem"

oh so thats it huh? Instead of it being a likely hard drive problem, its a virus that caused the chkdsk errors and made the drive unrecognizable in the bios. man you DO know so much about computers. I can see why CompUSA hired you!

11/12/2006 10:54:50 AM

i feel your pain, mine just died sunday morning.

my hard drive would click several times a day, since about 6 months ago, so i figured it would go eventually. Now when i try to boot it, it starts clicking and goes through some text to eventually say "Operating System Not Found". It had done that once before, about 6 weeks ago, but this time it was the end. Luckily I had backed up my stuff recently, although there are a couple things i've lost.

I had a hp pavillion ze5375us, it had a pentium 4 and that thing got hot as hell...the fan would run constantly, i couldnt put it on my lap it was so hot, it warped a tray that i put in on one day. i got it about 3.5 years ago. after the first 1.5 years my first hard drive crashed. i replaced it and that is the one that crashed sunday. the internal wireless adapter even crapped out about 1 year ago. I'm glad to get rid of the beast, though...but now i have to go through the long reinstallation/reconfiguration process on my new gateway [http://www.officedepot.com/ddSKU.do?level=SK&id=882418&x=0&Ntt=gateway&y=0&uniqueSearchFlag=true&An=text].

11/13/2006 1:17:47 AM

aww come back earl, i promise i'll be more gentle next time.

11/15/2006 1:08:09 AM

Quote :

"boowex, by chance do you still have a warranty on the drive?"

thanks for tryin, but if i still had a warranty, i would have just sent it in by now instead of asking for help on here (which was my last resort before just replacing it myself). im not an idiot for those of you who assume that since im a girl i dont know what the hell im doing; ive been working on computers since i was 8 years old and DOS was popular, i think i know a thing or two about them. damn, everyone's so mean around here! Thanks to those of you who have genuinely tried to help me though, i appreciate the input!

11/15/2006 4:16:23 PM