Dell :: Inspiron 1525can't Even Install Vista With CD (suspect It's The Hard Drive)
Jan 27, 2009
I've been trying to help my roommate out on this one and I think that the issue is hard drive is corrupt, but I'm not sure. A few days ago, he told me that Vista has been taking ages to start up.
I tried looking at to see what was going on and we couldn't even get passed the welcome screen. At this time, there were no errors showing up before the Welcome screen loaded. I got the Dell Vista reinstall disc and attempted to repair the files. Doing that didn't do anything. Therefore, I figured that his only option was to reformat.
I followed that guide that's stickied which shows you how to install the mediadirect and vista to each of there own partitions. After doing deleting the partitions and installing mediadirect to its own partition, I proceeded to installing Windows Vista.
Vista then finished installing and restarted automatically as it normally does. After restarting and going passed the first black screen (here you can hit F12 to get to bios), I get an error that reads .....
The notebook is about 5 yrs old and has the original 20Gb HD which I wanted to upgrade to a 120. The operating system is XP and the computer runs fine; it just needs more HD space. I purchased a new WD HD which will not install. When I put the new drive in (with XP install disk in CD drive) the system will hang for about five minutes before finally getting to the setup routine. The setup sees the new HD and prompts to format it and I did. Once the format is done and it reboots, I get a BIOS message saying "fixed disk failure." At this point, it will not proceed to install windows. I've also tried booting from a floppy. Basically, the machine will not boot from a floppy with the new HD installed. If I remove the HD entirely, the machine will boot from a floppy and it will also boot correctly from the XP setup disk. It will also boot from a floppy with the old hard drive installed and it also boots from the CD with the old hard drive installed. I have sent the drive back to the seller and they tested it and said they could find nothing wrong. I tried installing the new HD about a half dozen times and it behaved the same way each time. I just went through this proceedure with another computer (replace old HD with brand new one), so I know how it is supposed to work. There is nothing I can configure in BIOS as far as the HD is concerned, and I have not been able to find anything that would indicate that I need to update my BIOS. My basic question is; why will the computer work with the old HD, but not a new one if there is nothing wrong with the new HD?
I have replaced the hard drives with new blank ones, but I cannot now reinstall Vista from the Reinstallation DVD because no drives are seen.
I have updated the BIOS to the latest available version, but still no joy.
I have taken out the drives and, using an external HDD port, can access them from another PC, so I'm certain there's no issues with the drives themselves.
I've tried Paragon 2010 Suite, but even that cannot "see" the drives, so I'm deducing that it's an issue peculiar to this Dell model.
I had a problem with my old windows vista, and cannot restart windows. I put in a brand new 500hd. The windows 7 goes through the whole install procedure, but the last step "completing installation", it does not complete, but locks up. I have tried several times, and even removed the cd before the final restart, to have it search the HD for start-up soft ware, as I have read, but nothing works.
A few days ago i bought an Acer 7730 laptop with Windows Vista pre-installed and no disks. After initial hesitation i have decided to keep vista and not downgrade to XP. After all there will be more service packs and tweaking should speed it up lots anyway.
However, i really want to get rid of the three partitions on the hard drive. There is only one physical hard drive but there are three partitions; a hidden 10GB one (EISA configuration) which from what i have gathered is now obsolete, a C: partition 111.44GB and a D: partition 111.44GB. There is no need to split a drive into several partitions now that we have the NTFS file system (unless you are using multiple operating systems of course - but i am not) so this is really annoying me.
I have made the 2 recovery DVD and the 1 applications/drivers DVD. I have an old WinXP disk that i can use to format the laptop if required.
Question:
Using the recovery disks (which i'm assuming contain a copy of my bought OEM Vista that was pre-installed on the laptop), can i delete the partitions, format the hard drive and install Vista onto a single c: partition?
I've done this exact process before with WinXP hundreds of times but i'm not sure whether i can do the same for Vista with just the 3 DVD mentioned...
I recently purchased a Dell Inspiron 15 that came with the partitioned data recovery feature. I immediately created 2 recovery disks. Yesterday, I sectioned my active hard drive so that I could have, in effect, 2 hard drives. The newly partitionedsection of the hard drive is naturally blank and I would like to install my data recovery or disk recovery information on it.
HP Pavilion Dv5-2077cl Entertainment NotebookProduct #: WQ799UA#ABAWindows 7 64-bit
I have been getting a random blue screen popping up every once and a while, that will "dump my physical memory" or something and then reboot itself after like 30 seconds. my hard drive was the reason for these constant errors. So I backed everything up, in preparation of a real crash. I am in the process of ordering a new hard drive from Newegg.com, and I would like to know if it is hard to replace a hard drive in a notebook, or if I should have Geek Squad do it for $50. Also, I dont think I have the Operating system disc that came with my computer, so how do I order that from HP and how much is it?And last but not least, Is there a post or video with instructions on how to install a hard drive and the operating system?
I have a 2.5 year-old Dell Inspiron 640M (the US model number might be different). I had originally purchased it for writing e-mails. Over the past 2 months, I have been using it for heavy work loads such as financial modelling.
My typical use is : 2-3 large spreadsheets open 4-5 PDFs open 8 tabs of web pages on CHROME VLC to play music in the background. Access + VBA editor.
Although I have 2 Gb and a 1.66GHz processor (T5500), I find the HDD LeD blinking all the time and I have to really wait for the OS to refresh the screen .....
It says that the updater isnt compatible with 64bit versions, despite being listed under windows 7 64bit. So when I click on "flash" it doesnt work, i just get error
I got this Laptop with Ubuntu to dodge being locked into only having Vista and hit my head during many attempts to install Vista Home Premium SP1 64-Bit.
First problem is I keep getting a "can't use this volume" or "can't find volume suitable for Vista" during partitioning.
Got the Intel driver on a flash drive for it but not sure if I need the flash cache driver or not. Vista 32-Bit hung during setup so..
Recently my brand new studio 17 updated, about a week later I noticed that 50GB had gone missing! I of course called tech support to see if they could help (good luck) after spending hours on the phone they could not really solve the issue, asides from doing a factory reset.
Now again I am having this issue again, once Vista updated it is slowly eating away hard drive space. There is currently 31.4GB being used (yes, this includes all hidden files) on a 450GB hard drive, yet the system reports only 402 GB free space. Each day it decreases about 2-4 GBs ......
So Dell sent me a 1647 as a replacement for a faulty 1640 but they didnt install the bluray drive like my 1640 had, and now they said that they are not going to !
My 1640 has a slot load bluray drive in it and I want to swap them myself, how hard is this?
I installed XP on my laptop which essentially deleted all the old HP software. And now I want to go back to Vista. Since theres no program to do it, I'm kind of lost. However I see the HP recovery hard drive still. Is there still a way to revert back to Vista or would I need to get a copy of Vista and install it from there?
My laptop is a hp dv6000 with 32 bit vista home premium preinstalled from the store. I never upgraded a laptop before so I don't know what to expect. Are all vista preinstalled systems already activated and do they use the OEM key or the product key on the bottom of the laptop? Recently my original hard drive failed and had no other choice expect to upgrade to a new one. My laptop came with the windows anytime upgrade disc so I used that to clean install vista home premium. Would the user recovery discs work instead on a new empty hard drive? When it asks for the product key the first time, I entered it in using the key on the bottom of the laptop. After everything was complete it said "3 days until automatic activation" and had the OEM key listed, not the one on the bottom of the laptop. I reactivate again using the sticker on the bottom on the laptop and it said "windows is activated", but it still had the OEM key listed. Did I enter the right key both times? Would there be any difference using the OEM key instead? Now about the recovery discs, if the "swsetup" folder was deleted before creating the discs will it still be on the disc even though it's suppose to be a factory image? Will I get the recovery partition and quick play if I reinstall again?
Using my inspiron 2330 (only 18mths old ) as normal next thing it tells me it encountered fault and has to reboot anyway it keeps saying scanning and repairing drive (c) then does not allow me to log in so i manage to get into bios to do a scan and it guves me a error code of 2000-0142 validation code of 112406 and and then says harddrive 0-s/n wd-wmc152946178
When i finally manage to log in my desk top screen is flashing and keeps telling my hard drive fault ....
I recently got a Sony Vaio Sr-210J/H through some private deal...but when I got it I noticed that I got scammed and the laptop didn't have a Hard Drive . So, I buy a 250 Gb Hard Drive, I open the hard drive slot, and i notice that I don't have anywhere to connect the hard drive to. I finally found this thread: Guide to : Upgrading Sony SR HDD & Ram which helped a lot and confirmed that i wasn't crazy. I'm missing the metal part and whatever connects the HDD to the motherboard. Does anyone have any idea where I could get the parts, or what to do?
I just installed new HHD; trying to reinstall Windows Vista Home Premium 64BIT SP1 from Reinstallation DVD of the Dell Studio 1537; I get twoerrors:
1-This computer’s hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk’s controlleris enabled in the computer’s BIOS menu. How can I tell the disk is enabled?
2 - Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation. What? My HDDisk size is 298.1GB free space?
My hard drive was formatted; everything, recovery and all. I went to install Win 8 back on it from a CD I have, it go's all the way thru the steps up to where you you pick a Drive to install on, and a messege appears saying; No Hard Drive detected- install Mass Storage Driver for detection of Hard Drive. What I need to install, and where to get it. It will not install an Operating system for the life of me.
I am replacing the installed Seagate Momentus 160 gb 5400 SATA disk with a Seagate Momentus 320gb 7200rpm SATA hard disk as I need the extra space to hold my growing itunes collection and feel the extra speed would also be welcome.
I have the original Dell installation disks (Operating System, drivers etc), the installation disks for the subsequently installed software (other than the freebies including iTunes etc available on the net) and have backed up all my critical data to an external hard drive using the vista backup facility for subsequent restoration once all the software has been installed.
I will of course keep the 160 gb drive available with all it's data intact as a secondary safeguard until I have satisfactorily completed the installation and testing of the new disk.
I want to do a clean Vista install on the above notebook, and if the time comes, restore the setup (OS) to the default config with minimal effort. Read a lot of threads on how to do this, but just need some help/advice on the following.
Currently the HDD partitioned as: 110MB (EISA Config), FAT16 Pri 10GB, RECOVERY (D:), NTFS Pri 136GB, OS (C:), NTFS Pri Act 2.5GB MEDIADIRECT, FAT32
Discs supplied with laptop: Vista Reinstall DVD, Dell Drivers & Utilities, Roxio, Dell MediaDirect
What I want is to do a clean Vista install to the OS (C:) partition (formatting it), but still keep the other partitions in case I have to resell my notebook. My main concern is not being able to restore the factory image back to C .....
I have a problem in bootin my inspiron 14z. Everytime when I start the boot, it always stuck at Dell logo. Sometime, it said that internal hard disk drive not found to resoldve this issue, try to reseat the drive. The system was running well just until last night.
I've been looking everywhere for an answer to this question and can't find it. I have an Inspiron 9300 (old.. I know), and it still works great for everything I need it to do, except one thing. I have no storage space at all.
I've been looking at throwing in a new HD, preferably as large as possible.
The only problem is all the conflicting things I hear about these systems.
First off, I know that mine is an ATA model, not SATA. I'm definitely looking for storage space above all else. So whats the biggest drive this laptop will support? I've been looking at this one (Western Digital 250 GB 5400 RPM), but I've heard things about the bios only allowing hard drives up to a certain size.
I'm using Dell Inpsiron 1526 with 160 GB HDD (5400 RPM I think). I want to upgrade it to higher capacity.
Can you tell me if Inspiron 1526 has extra bay for 2nd hdd. If yes, can I use the 160 GB HDD with the new HDD i buy(I'm thinking to buy Seagate Momentus 7200 320 GB).
If its possible to add 2nd hdd, what extra accessories will I need? I mean the caddy, cables, etc.
I have a Dell Inspiron 1501 Laptop, last week when switching on the laptop I was presented with an error saying "Disk Read Error", the laptop would not boot up at all not even in safe mode.
I ran Dell diagnostics and it gave me a error code of 0146 which is harddrive related. I then attempted to repair the windows installation using chkdsk /p and /r but this seems to have made things worse! When booting up, all i can see is a blank screen
I replaced the hard drive in my Dell Inspiron N5110 laptop. I need to get the programs and data files transferred to the new drive. I have a Repair Win 7 - 64-bit CD, made from the old hard drive -- do I use that to boot up the computer? Or do I use the old hard drive image that I have stored on an external hard drive?
I ran the diagnostics tools and it failed to detect hard drive. I'm trying to use a usb OS but it fails to boot too. I tried tweaking the configs in the bios setup ( sata port, etc) , yet I cannot even use an external boot drive.
