Error when turning on a 2005 Dell Inspiron - Dead?

Phonesis · 22 Jul 2017 at 19:04

I decided to switch on an old 2005 Dell Inspiron 9300 today. Luckily, I backed up all the data on it years ago. Was just intrigued to see if it worked.

Nope. Get this:

Is this a dead hard drive? I tried F1, and F2 just seems to show BIOS. Not sure what to try? I have the original Dell OEM disc. Think this is hardware issue though.

Vita · 22 Jul 2017 at 21:32

Is the hdd still showing in the bios? Can you hear it clicking? (guessing it's an old mechanical one)

hornetstinger · 22 Jul 2017 at 21:34

It's not dead.

Do a BIOS reset and make sure the right drive is selected.
Try another hard drive. Take out the faulty HD put it in an enclosure and see if you can read data from it (or re-partition)

Phonesis · 22 Jul 2017 at 22:31

Vita said:
Is the hdd still showing in the bios? Can you hear it clicking? (guessing it's an old mechanical one)

Yes it is. And I think I hear clicking. Odd.

I ran a diagnostics check by pressing f12 on boot screen. It detected an error at the Hard Drive stage with code: 1000-0142

I googled it and found a 2005 post about it being in relation to bad sectors?

I followed these steps:

1. Boot the computer with the Windows disc.
2. At the "Welcome to Setup" screen > press R to start the Recovery Console.
3. When prompted type "1". (if you have a multi-boot computer, select the installation you want to repair.)
4. When prompted > enter the Administrator password. If there is no password, just press ENTER.
5. Now you should be in the recovery console.
6. Type chkdsk c: /p /r > press <Enter>.
7. When the disk check is done: Type Exit >

It simply says in DOS that the volume appears to contain number of unrecoverable errors. Guessing it's dead? HD at least.

Phonesis · 23 Jul 2017 at 13:43

Anyone got any ideas? I might end up taking it to tip this week. Not sure it's worth all the effort to fix / replace hdrive. Not even sure how I get old drive out.

Pickers · 23 Jul 2017 at 17:41

How odd - I just pulled my old Inspiron 5100 out from the depths of the garage today - no help to you but it booted up. Was looking into creating a retro gamer...
Was going to look into replacing the HDD with an msata SSD using an msata to IDE/PATA converter card.

Phonesis · 24 Jul 2017 at 11:03

I ended up putting it on free cycle. Fun experience. Better than going to tip though. Someone was along within an hr of posting who said he needed an old Dell to experiment with. Took out my dead hard drive first and told them it needed a new one. I suspect they will strip it for parts anyway.