No OS found but laptop will start if I run a diagnostic test?

baby fish

laptop will only start by carrying out a full diagnostic test and rebooting it.

If its started it in the normal way these messages come up saying :

Warning: Battery cannot be identified
Warning: Charger cannot be identified.
PXE-E61 media test failure, check cable
PXE-M0F Exiting Brodcom,PXE ROM
Operating System not found.

So to get it working, I restart it and go into the boot menu, then Diagnostics : a pre-boot system assessment runs:

This message pops up:
Error code 0141
Msg Error code 2000-0141
Msg. No drive detected.

A red X appears beside Hard drive-> DSTshort test fail.

I then click OK and continue on with the test anyway,
at the end of the test "pre-boot system assessment complete, no diagnostic utility partition identified, please select ok to reboot your system"

I click ok and the laptop reboots and works perfectly.
Its a DELL inspiron 1501 running VISTA (2006)

1.Why will it only work after the diagnostics test, even though this test doesn't seem to change anything?
2.The laptop battery is completely dead, it wont charge: did this damage the hard drive?

Anyway to get it to starts without running a diagnostic test???
(I'd dump it only there is one program on the harddrive that I use)

Any help on this appreciated

degsie

“DST” stands for Drive Self Test. I'd say the HDD is on the way out. Run a scan on the drive from windows to see if you can repair any corrupt system files.

CreepingDeath

Did you make recovery disks when you bought the laptop?
Some laptops offered you the opportunity when you first login.
Otherwise, there may be a Dell utility to copy the recovery partition to a USB drive or set of DVDs before the hard disk completely fails.

Or at least try to get a backup of the Windows drivers, something like this should do it

http://sourceforge.net/projects/drvback/

baby fish

degsie wrote: »

“DST” stands for Drive Self Test. I'd say the HDD is on the way out. Run a scan on the drive from windows to see if you can repair any corrupt system files.

I have done this before by right clicking on the drive ->properties->tools then scan, it removed I think 40 corrupt files if I remember correctly and it put them in a folder called found.

I tried it again yesterday but didn't show up anything. thanks for this suggestion tho:)

baby fish

CreepingDeath wrote: »

Did you make recovery disks when you bought the laptop?
Some laptops offered you the opportunity when you first login.
Otherwise, there may be a Dell utility to copy the recovery partition to a USB drive or set of DVDs before the hard disk completely fails.

Or at least try to get a backup of the Windows drivers, something like this should do it

http://sourceforge.net/projects/drvback/

No recovery disks but there is a recovery drive with a restore to factory setting, when I click it warns it will clear the entire hardrive.

but the problem is I want to keep a program ( I got while in college)thats on the harddrive so I don't want to clear the entire drive.

Is it possible to remove the program from the drive and put it on a different laptop?
or
Would it be possible to make some sort of CD to get the laptop going? I think its called a boot disk?

CreepingDeath

baby fish wrote: »

No recovery disks but there is a recovery drive with a restore to factory setting, when I click it warns it will clear the entire hardrive.

Oops... sorry for not being specific.
Your hard disk is more than likely fecked.

Your next steps should be to buy a new hard disk.
You would have to decide whether you want a "normal" hard disk with typical decent capacity (maybe 320Gb to 1tb), or maybe a smaller but faster SSD drive. (depends on your budget)

I bought a 64Gb SSD for my mothers old laptop for around €50 recently.
She only needs it for basic internet browsing etc... 64gb was enough.

On your current dodgy hard disk is a recovery partition.
It allows your BIOS to take the contents of that and overwrite the main part of your hard drive. Effectively "resetting" your drive back to when you got it.

But if the hard drive is failing, with bad sectors and an accumulation of problems over years... then this will do little for you and will erase all your data and programs on the hard disk at the minute.

So my suggestion is to start transferring what you can off the current hard disk with the aim to transfer it to a new hard disk.

baby fish wrote: »

but the problem is I want to keep a program ( I got while in college)thats on the harddrive so I don't want to clear the entire drive.

What program? Does it have a licence key ?
If you're lucky you can just find the folder that it is installed under, and copy that to a new machine.
But it may have registry keys too, it's hard to say.

baby fish wrote: »

Would it be possible to make some sort of CD to get the laptop going? I think its called a boot disk?

A boot disk will simply boot the computer into Windows.
That doesn't mean that it will recognise your failing hard disk.

So you really need to
1) copy all important documents and data from that hard disk to "somewhere else". Eg. a usb key, dropbox or some cloud based storage.
2) try to copy the recovery partition on your current hard disk to some other media, eg. USB or a set of DVDs
3) Remove the current hard drive and replace with a new one
4) Use the backup of your current recovery partition in step 2, to recreate your Windows Vista installation on your new hard disk
5) Copy that program from college, plus any other data you stored in step 1, to your new hard drive.


I know that some SSD drives come with a "cloning" program to clone your current hard disk to the new drive, but I haven't used those yet.
Any machines I've had to perform family based IT support for, had no important data on it, so I could reset the whole thing.

baby fish

@ Creeping Death

Thanks for all that info.

Its a 3D drawing program, it was a copy so I don't have a licence key for it, there was a code to activate it , something like 10000000000000. I cant remember it now.

I tried to copy it before to a new laptop I have, but it didn't work. I would go down the road of a new drive and copy everything onto the new drive but I cant remember the code to activate it so I presume there is no point:mad:

Thanks for your help

CreepingDeath

baby fish wrote: »

Its a 3D drawing program, it was a copy so I don't have a licence key for it, there was a code to activate it , something like 10000000000000. I cant remember it now.

I tried to copy it before to a new laptop I have, but it didn't work.

There may be some windows registry entries you need to copy over.
If it were me, I'd be searching windows registry for the company name of the 3d drawing program, and/or the product name.

Also, have a look in your Windows users folder, eg. C:\Users\babyfish for folders with the 3d programs company name or product name.

Try copying them over too.
Windows registry can be tricky, if you find the settings for the company you can sometimes "export" the branch, then import it in another machine.

baby fish

i'll give it a go , thanks