OT: Laptop hard drive - I'm stumped

You had memory? We had to use rocks.

I just had a Dell in the shop last week. The bios saw both CD/DVD drives, but the computer could not read them. Device manager showed them as not having drivers installed. The drives both worked in another computer. BOTH SATA cables were bad - not bad enough that the computer didn't know they were there, but bad enough the compyter could not read them.. Like I say - "DELL from Hell syndrome - AGAIN!!" I hate their JUNK. About as much as I dislike their business practices.

Oh. I see. Thank you.

--Winston

Rocks for Zeros, Sticks for Ones.

Ahh yes, the good old days.

Yes, a restore CD says there is no drive connected. The MBR is usually on the first sector and if it's damaged, physically or magnetically, the computer won't boot. If the MBR is damaged on this drive, it would explain why it won't boot but would it explain why the laptop BIOS won't recognize there is a drive connected? I seem to remember a way of getting the computer to look to another sector for the bootstrap, it had something to do with changing the manufacturers low-level format. I want to try a different make and model of laptop too to see if there is any differences in different controllers. I can't think of any low-level software other than Spinrite to work with. One of the other guys suggested there might be an accelerometer in the drive that the desktop ignores.

On the other hand, I've had great luck with Dell laptops. They are easy to work on and cheap to get parts for. I think they are pretty rugged as I see what my customers do to them. Toshiba's are the ones from hell!

Is that notebook set up for Dynamic IDE Autodetection or Manual IDE Autodetection?

--Winston

Also, did you follow the 'dropped computer' recovery process outlined in:

If You Drop or Damage Your Computer Save and close any open files, exit any open programs, and shut down the computer.

Disconnect the AC adapter from the computer and from the electrical outlet.

Turn off any attached external devices, and disconnect them from their power sources and then from the computer.

Remove and reinstall the battery.

Turn on the computer.

NOTE: See your Product Information Guide or separate paper warranty document that shipped with your computer for information on your warranty coverage.

If the computer does not start, or if you cannot identify the damaged components, contact Dell.

I still have my Texas Instruments TI-99/4A out in the shed, all the accessories, and about a dozen spare consoles from garage sales. Dual

5"floppies, but not sure whether they were DSSD or DSDD. Have the Expansion Box and a garage sale CP/M Card I never even tried, but never got the HDD.

And if I could get ribbons easily I'd still be using my Epson MX-80

- which is badged as a TI-99/4A Impact Printer. Used to load a full box of tractor-feed 1-up mailing labels and a fresh ribbon, and let it run all night...

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a number of drives write a servo track and parametric data on a specific track, and if the drive can't find this info it doesn't know what size to report. On some drives you could get a special low level format program (western digital had one) that would actually reformat the drive so you could then rewrite the MBR and do a second low level (but not that low) format so the drive would be usable.

The OLD dell inspirons were really nice. I'd still pay to get my inspiron

7000 or 7500 fixed.

I just finished going through my 8100. I use it when I'm working on site to load code or DNC from. Nothing like W2K and a real serial port. The only thing that was a PIA was the fan replacement. I was even able to get replacement battery's cheaply.

JC

Did you play "text adventure" games? (XYZZY!!! (from Zork))

Not too much. Just the original "Hitchhiker's Guide" with the "Invisible Ink" hint book.

I soon outgrew that one, and talked mom into dropping $8K on a fully loaded PC-XT - and that was $8K /after/ the 50% IBM employee discount from Aunt Penny.

They thought we were insane getting the 10MB hard drive /and/ dual floppies /and/ 640K RAM /and/ Proprinter XL just to manage a large mailing list. But it served us well for many years - the replacement was a Pentium 90. If I could get a fresh MFM drive for a reasonable price, that puppy would still be running.

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I am - right now - printing wing part patterns on my 25 year old Epson FX-100.

Laser printers are nice, bubbles make color, but when it has to be full real-life scale, nothing beats an ancient Epson.

I'm running XP on this box, and had to turn off all the bells and whistles in the printer driver to get solid output. Otherwise the lines get jittered up something horrible. For a while I thought I was going to have to resurrect a DOS machine to get this stuff printed.

Also had to LUBRICATE the printer to get it working again. (remember those old hammer and chisel days?)

How about posting the make and model number of the drive?

Does the laptop expect master or cable select jumping?

Is the drive spinning up? (Power pins)

Is the settings for finding the drive set to auto?

I'm assuming IDE, EIDE, or ATA < 7.

Wes

Spinrite would have notified if that sector was bad.

Wes

I'm typing this on W2K. Still have two boxen with it. Laptop, I went all out last July, finally met XP. I'm really not impressed that much with XP. Given my happiness with W2K you gotta know I'm not doing Vista anytime soon. I'm hoping Vista goes the way of ME.

I have had pretty good luck with usb serial adaptors on W2K when I ran out of serial ports. Haven't tried it yet on XP. One less layer of something fing up is always good. :)

Wes

Xerox 820?

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller