"Internal Hard Disk Drive Not Found etc..."

Ronan H

OK here's the deal...

- Dell XPS m1530 laptop
- Windows 7 Ultimate x64bit (was Windows Vista Home Premium x32bit)
- Samsung HM320JI ATA Hard Drive

At random, irrespective of the operating system installed, and for the past year and a half, I have been experiencing an odd situation whereby the machine suddenly goes to a black screen with an error message as follows (more or less word for word):

"internal hard disk drive not found - to resolve this issue try to reseat the drive. No bootable devices, strike F1 to try reboot, F2 for setup utility. Press F5 to run onboard disgnostics"

I have reseated the drive numerous times, and also cleaned the connections etc...
F1 doesnt work, i.e. it gives me the same error again
F2 is as with F1
F5 runs a battery of tests, all of which always complete successfully

What I have done since the first time it happened is employ a forced shutdown, from which I can just start up as normal again and the computer continues as normal as it nothing ever happened...

Any research I have conducted so far has been inconclusive, with the only spark of light being that this is a fault with the particular model of hard drive. The suggestions of "try reseating the drive" or "have you pressed F1" have been very helpful on some other forums I have browsed :rolleyes:... I am unable to find anything concrete to back up this hard drive claim. I have not gone to Dell with this, firstly because my service agreement has expired, and secondly because from what I have read they are unable to offer a solution to it, and any offerings they have povided has left people without their machines for prolonged periods of time, which is not an option realistically. Contacting Dell (after starting a new agreement of course) will be by last resort if nobody here is able to offer a solution or something close to it. My money is on the guys here to find a solution or at least a cause, as Boards has seldom let me down in the past.

It seems like an odd occurrance TBH, usually hard drive error like this are the last thing anyone ever wants to see and they usually mean bye bye hard drive, but I'm so used to this now that it might as well be a new mail notification! I have never lost any work or the machine never seems to have suffered any ill effects of it, bizarre!

So I would be very interested to hear what people have to say about this so feel free. And if anyone suggests that I should reseat the drive or press F1 etc..., I shall be killing them !

Thanks for reading...

Ro

Edit: I havent ever been able to identify anything in the event viewer logs to shed any light on it either.

ricman

the cmos battery may need replacing, pc may forget drive settings, sectors,lba, etc.my friend has the same problem, boot up pc, hardrive error, press f1, to boot
he just presses f1, not a major problem, your hd is connected ok.
pc just autodetects hardrive,settings,
is the pc date always correct.
my advice, reinstall windows, if no change, install new cmos battery, cost 2 euro.Make sure Battery VOLTAGE is the same, the size,diameter is the same.
you could just have a virus, malware that just causes windows to crash ramdomly.

jpl888

Well I would try a process of elimination starting with cheapest thing first, so:-

1. Upgrade BIOS.

2. Try different SATA cable.

3. Try different drive.

4. Try different disk controller (probably not realistic on laptop).

Hope this helps.

BTW if the CMOS battery was at fault you would also be losing the time every time your machine boots and I have never seen that cause a hard-disk issue before anyway.

Ronan H

ricman wrote: »

the cmos battery may need replacing, pc may forget drive settings, sectors,lba, etc.my friend has the same problem, boot up pc, hardrive error, press f1, to boot
he just presses f1, not a major problem, your hd is connected ok.
pc just autodetects hardrive,settings,
is the pc date always correct.
my advice, reinstall windows, if no change, install new cmos battery, cost 2 euro.Make sure Battery VOLTAGE is the same, the size,diameter is the same.
you could just have a virus, malware that just causes windows to crash ramdomly.

Time and date are always fine, never had any issues with them. Have reinstalled Vista numerous times and most recently a fresh install of 7 so that has never sorted it out either...

No viruses as confirmed by regular virus checks...

jpl888 wrote: »

Well I would try a process of elimination starting with cheapest thing first, so:-

1. Upgrade BIOS.

2. Try different SATA cable.

3. Try different drive.

4. Try different disk controller (probably not realistic on laptop).

Hope this helps.

BTW if the CMOS battery was at fault you would also be losing the time every time your machine boots and I have never seen that cause a hard-disk issue before anyway.

I already have the most up to date BIOS (A12) so I guess I'll go and have a look at the cabling and see if that makes any difference. Trying different drives is probably not going to be practical as the issue is very random and doesn't happen regularly enough to have a troubleshotting hard drive installed. The cable is very realistic though so I'll give that a shot and see how it goes...

Thanks for the suggestions guys...

Ro

jpl888

I have had a problem where I have to reseat my SSD to get it recognised, it's a symptom of bad contacts.

Perhaps cleaning the contacts on the drive with a cotton bud and alcohol would help.

I just thought my cable suggestion is silly because it's a laptop.

Maybe you could try the drive in an external caddy for some time. At least that would tell us whether the problem is on the laptop or hard-drive.