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HDD failure

nervenerve Registered User regular
edited September 2011 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
I have a 5 or 6 year old Dell XPS and had been getting a 'windows - delayed write failure' error for the last couple weeks. I decided to back up all my files and try to run the dell factory restore. Norton ghost failed at 0% due to a bad sector on the disc. The dell hardware utility gives an error code 4, which apparently means electrical failure.

I unplugged the bad hardrive and tried to install windows on a secondary drive but it fails and says there is no drive installed. However, the drive does show up in the BIOS. It is a Caviar Black hardrive if that helps.

Any ideas?

nerve on

Posts

  • grouch993grouch993 Both a man and a numberRegistered User regular
    We have an old dimension 9200 XPS that has similar issues. Sometimes connecting the drive to a different controller will work, or sometimes going into the bios and flipping a value then saving will help.

    Which version of windows and what partition sizes on the other drive? There were problems in the past with some versions of windows and large partitions.

    Steam Profile Origin grouchiy
  • nervenerve Registered User regular
    WinXP. I think the corrupted drive is 168gb and the second is 1tb

  • grouch993grouch993 Both a man and a numberRegistered User regular
    Hmm, looking around it seems the drive size issue was XP sp1 and earlier (?).

    In the BIOS, try setting LBA on the 1tb drive?

    Steam Profile Origin grouchiy
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