Hi there,
Am writing this on my phone seeing as I cannot use my laptop any more so please bear with me!
Ok here is a potted history of the problems I have had:
After numerous hard resets due to my 2010 Dell Inspiron Laptop overheating or crashing, I discovered through the SMART utility that there were 14 sectors 'pending'. During a mass transfer of photos etc from my camera to picasa, it crashed again due to overheating. Thereafter, the HD light would permanently remain on when I tried to open the folder containing the photos I was transferring. This indicated to me that there was some corruption or similar defect in there at that location....
Sensing imminent failure I copied everything I could think of that was of value to an external HD. I couldn't do a full image or full backup as it was slightly too small for it all.
I then did chkdsk at startup, followed by chkdsk /r. This promptly found several bad sectors and attempted to repair them but this then proceeded to crash, hanging for hours at the same place with the usual constant HD activity. I then had to turn it off eventually as it had obviously not worked.
Turning it back on, I was presented with the 'boot device not found' error.
I then tried to use the Windows 7 recovery disk to try startup repair but after a very slow and drawn out loading process this failed on installation of drivers by giving a login error. I couldn't even get to the main recovery options menu. I had to then cold reset again.
Upon starting up again I was given the 'a read error occurred - press ctrl alt del to restart' error.
Now when I try to boot from the Windows 7 recovery cd or the Windows 7 installation cd it goes through the process of loading, with the starting windows screen, but eventually all I get is a black screen with a white cursor and that's it. No more HD activity, nothing. I have left it for 3 hours in that state to see if anything happens but no.
Can anyone please think of any more possible ways forward? I am completely stumped by this one!!!
Thanks.
H
Am writing this on my phone seeing as I cannot use my laptop any more so please bear with me!
Ok here is a potted history of the problems I have had:
After numerous hard resets due to my 2010 Dell Inspiron Laptop overheating or crashing, I discovered through the SMART utility that there were 14 sectors 'pending'. During a mass transfer of photos etc from my camera to picasa, it crashed again due to overheating. Thereafter, the HD light would permanently remain on when I tried to open the folder containing the photos I was transferring. This indicated to me that there was some corruption or similar defect in there at that location....
Sensing imminent failure I copied everything I could think of that was of value to an external HD. I couldn't do a full image or full backup as it was slightly too small for it all.
I then did chkdsk at startup, followed by chkdsk /r. This promptly found several bad sectors and attempted to repair them but this then proceeded to crash, hanging for hours at the same place with the usual constant HD activity. I then had to turn it off eventually as it had obviously not worked.
Turning it back on, I was presented with the 'boot device not found' error.
I then tried to use the Windows 7 recovery disk to try startup repair but after a very slow and drawn out loading process this failed on installation of drivers by giving a login error. I couldn't even get to the main recovery options menu. I had to then cold reset again.
Upon starting up again I was given the 'a read error occurred - press ctrl alt del to restart' error.
Now when I try to boot from the Windows 7 recovery cd or the Windows 7 installation cd it goes through the process of loading, with the starting windows screen, but eventually all I get is a black screen with a white cursor and that's it. No more HD activity, nothing. I have left it for 3 hours in that state to see if anything happens but no.
Can anyone please think of any more possible ways forward? I am completely stumped by this one!!!
Thanks.
H
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