Diana B
14 years ago
Inspiron 530, Vista 32, Core 2 Duo (E7400); 6gb RAM
HD - Seagate 500gb SATA
After leaving it off over the weekend, I started it up but couldn't boot. I'd get past the Dell Logo screen, and the screen would just be blank.
I'm thinking that the drive is all bad or just the MBR - it does show up in BIOS settings.
Using the OS CD, I went into recovery console and command prompt. I tried running bootrec, but I kept getting an error message "incorrect parameter". I'd type "bootrec.exe /fixmbr", "bootrec /fixmbr" and different permutations, from drives c, x or d, but keep getting the same messages.
I gave up and tried to reinstall the OS, figuring that if it showed up in BIOS settings, it's probably a good drive (if that's wrong, please let me know). unfortunately on the installation, the PC didn't see a HD to install it to - does that mean the drive is definitely dead?
This was actually a replacement for a unit that died in the summer of 2009. About last may or so, I started getting pre-boot sequence warning messages that the drive "had exceeded a parameter". I backed up what I could figuring I could afford to let it run its course. The "trouble" was that HD ran just fine - the warning message was the ONLY sign of a problem, which made me doubt that the fault was in the HD.
So my questions:
1) Is the HD the cause of this?
2) can the HD be saved, whether or not w/a reformat?
3) are there any other details I'm leaving out?