my *&^^%%$$#* &#($(#)(# laptop just gave me the BSOD followed by another BSOD followed by another BSOD followed by cannot find hard drive followed by a black screen with a blinking dash in the upper left hand corner.


*after each BSOD i attempted to restart into safe mode (which hung) prompting another hard restart

i have my dell diagnostic re-boot cd in, it spins up but nothing loads...

any help!??

 

Try pressing F12 when you start it up - that should boot you into the diagnostic partition and you won't need the CD. I'm guessing the hard drive is on its way out. If it won't even do that, it's even more likely the hard drive is toast.

 

when i boot the computer it never even boots the intial "dell" screen where you would then go to F12- the drive is silent, no clicking. the 4 fans all go to full speed when i boot up

 

Seriously it could be a bunch of crap...

Pull the battery and unplug it.

Reboot without the batter and see if you can get the Dell logo screen and F12

 

hahaha thanks Vader- just got off the chat with Sandeep-09856748 from dell- he thinks my HD is okay, but my laptop just bit the dust hardcore... suggested i get an external hard drive case for $20 and an equall powered laptop for another 4k(my current laptop was about 3K a couple yrs ago) oh joy, i love computers!!

 

If it is the laptop itself, you can pull the hard drive and put it in a case and connect it to any computer to get your files off.

4k??? What the heck do you need in a laptop? You can get a nice one for a grand that will do anything but play BF2 well.

 

What?!

How the <insert expletive here> did they determine you need a new computer that fast...

If you got a blinking cursor you have hope...

 

Try removing and reinstalling your RAM... or, if you are lucky enough to have a donor laptop, try another stick of RAM... loose or dying RAM can give those symptoms.

 

my dell laptop did that exact same thing when my harddrive crashed on me! sorry about that!

 

Even if it is the HDD, all is not lost... you can get new ones as cheap as $45.00

http://www.newegg.com/ProductSort/Su...op-Hard-Drives

 

my entire mother board is fried- graphics, sound,processors, the ram- everything is toasted...i run hi end design software on it- that laptop was a 3gig ram 200 gig hard drive 256 mb graphics dual 3.4 ghz P4 processor 15.5" hi end screen, dual layer dvd+rw, internal wireless (duh), bluetooth- they are checking the integrity of my hard drive now- i will know if it is good or not tomorrow- if it is i will get an external case for it to pull from- building my new PC now- this one will be a desktop though...

 

Holler if you need any questions answered - I do this crap for a living and I'm the admin over at the PCMech forums.

 

I would have said its your motherboard thats done, but apparently I dont come to this board enough in a day.

HD will be fine, sounds like a sick laptop!

 

*it was a sick laptop- it is now a 10 pound paperweight...

and holy crap does microsoft have the market cornered!!! you cannot buy an HP or Dell laptop or desktop with XP any more (well except for the absolute top of the line pc's)
the hard drive is safe- my external case should be here soon
new question:
will I be able to use programs based from the laptops HD, when it is connected to the new computer? If so, any tips on making this thing fully operational again? more specifically, how can i move the program and its relevant Registry values over to the new hard drive so that the program will work... Thanks for all the help!!!

the replacement pc:

I am now the disgruntled owner of a Dell XPS 710 Intel Core 2 Duo 2.66 MHz 4GB mem, 250 gig, 256mb NVIDIA GeForce 7900GS, XP pro SP2 20" ultrasharp digital widescreen flatpanel

 

You will need to re-install your programs onto the new computer.

With the exception of the most basic of programs that consist of an executable file and maybe a .dll or two, programs are installed "into" the Operating System by way of system file modifications and registry entries, not just the files you find in the "Program Files" folder.

The programs you had installed on the old computer were installed to the OS on that hard drive. You now have a new, different OS on a new, different hard drive, and the programs will have to be reinstalled to this one.