Dead HDD?

[BMcAnly]

I have a Dell Latitude notebook with a 40GB HDD. It will boot but after about 2-3 minutes locks up. Only option is to power down the machine. At that point I have to wait quite a while before it will boot again. If I try to immediately power up, it spins up for about 5 seconds then powers itself down. I don't think heat is the issue since in no case does it run long enough to get hot. I'm thinking replace HDD. Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance.

 

[acewarlock]

I don't think it's a HD as once it boots up it only needs the HD if your starting a new Program or saving a file, sounds more like overheating to me.




This is a Signature and not part of the answer, it appears on every reply.

This is an Analogy so don't take it personally as some have.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.

 

[acewarlock]

Do the laptop have a Floppy drive? then make a bootable Floppy and remove the HD and boot from the Floppy and see what happens. or if you have a CD/DVD drive us that instead of the floppy.




This is a Signature and not part of the answer, it appears on every reply.

This is an Analogy so don't take it personally as some have.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.

 

[burtsbees]

I have a 2 1/2" hdd USB external case---they're pretty cheap, and that's the easiest way to tell for certain---attach it to a working system (does not have to be a laptop) and do a fsck.

Burt

 

[burtsbees]

Crap---thinking UNIX...I mean chkdsk.

Burt

 

[wahnula]

...and do a fsck

LOL sounds profane! You can also run chkdsk from Windows Recovery Console or Start->Run->cmd-> chkdsk c:/-r, but I agree with acewarlock that this sounds like overheating.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[BMcAnly]

Just for grins and giggles I swapped out the DIMM's. It booted fine at that point, and ran perfectly for several hours. Turned it off for the night and next day same problems came back. Today it booted up one time, ran for about 10 minutes, then locked up again. Back to square one. Now I cannot boot up even from a live CD trying to take HDD out of the picture. I'll pull the drive and slave into another box and see if chkdsk or other utils find anything. BTW..I also blew it out with compressed air, but it seemed to be clean, although I didn't tear it down any furhter than access panels for DIMM's etc.

 

[acewarlock]

Like I said i don't think it's the HD.




This is a Signature and not part of the answer, it appears on every reply.

This is an Analogy so don't take it personally as some have.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.

 

[wahnula]

There is a cooling fan that is triggered by a thermal sensor, chances are either the sensor or the fan is intermittent. To test for overheating, after it shuts itself off boot into BIOS (F2 or Fn+F1 during boot) and have a look at the CPU temp, it should be under "hardware monitor" or the like. Or, you can use a Windows utility like CoreTemp or SpeedFan. I think you'll find the CPU is running hot.

What's hot? Depends on the CPU, but over 50C without load would be a bit toasty. At least this test will eliminate or confirm the CPU overheating theory.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[BMcAnly]

Thanks for the post wahnula. I won't have access to the machine for a few days, but as soon as I do that's the first thing I'll check. I think think machine is about 4 or 5 years old. Would that information still be displayed in BIOS screen? Thanks,

 

[wahnula]

Would that information still be displayed in BIOS screen?

Possibly, only way to know is to boot into BIOS and have a look. Perhaps any old Latitude owners reading this could investigate their BIOS for you.

Tony

Users helping Users...