HELP. laptop wont boot in to Windows

original.wood

original.wood

original.wood

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17 Mar 2009
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311
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Manchester
Just brought my laptop home from work, and it won't load any further than the Dell logo splash screen. I've tried it with the power supply and on battery. Ove tried discharging the laptop by removing the battery and power supply and holding down the power button. There are no CD-ROMS or flash drives fitted.

I can hear the HDD spinning and the fans are spinning. F12 brings up the boot options, but no safe mode

I dont know what to do, any advice?
 
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What happens when you select Windows boot manager?

:edit: are there options for longer diagnostics? They might be able to tell you more than the short simply showing as failed.
 
It does give me the option of a more thorough test, but even loading in to Boot Manager takes forever.

If the HDD has failed, could I buy an new HDD, and install windows 10 on it via USB? Thinking it would be cheaper than PC world repairs
 
If there's anything on that drive that you want to try and backup, I would create a live linux cd and see if you can access the drive.

I've done this years ago, was able to backup the data, then the drive promptly failed.

Looks like a 1TB mech drive from the service tag? Did you hear any clicking before?

Good time for an SSD upgrade.
 
Heard no clicking at all. I shut down the laptop Friday evening as normal, picked it up this morning to take home and do some work and it wouldn't start. I've just collected a 1tb mech drive from Maplins. Luckily there wasn't a lot of data on the drive, just some documents that I think are duplicated on a external drive. I don't plan on replacing the laptop anytime soon, do you think a SSD would be best? Problem is a SSD is more than I'm willing to spend for only 500gb roughly
 
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You'd want to take the back off to be 100% sure, but looking at the picture in the link below you can fit 3 drives, 2x 2.5" and an msata.

Not quite sure why you would want three, but if yours is the same you could use the 1tb mech drive for storage, and then get a smaller 2.5" ssd/msata for the OS 120/240gb for example.

http://www.jdhodges.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/DSC_8140-Custom-2.jpg

Personally, I would never go back to just using a mech drive, but if you were happy with it, then no you don't need an SSD, but it should make things a bit more faster.
 
Yeh that's it exactly. I've already had the back off and reseated the hard drive, just in case it came loose in transport, no luck. Early last year I considered an mSata drive, you can get small storage capicity ones, but still expensive as they're not as common as SSD.

Best outcome would be that the drive begins working again so i can boot up and back up the few documents I need. My thinking is that a failing/failed HDD will fail again even if repairs.

Do you think getting an old model SSD, from an auction site might be a good idea for the OS?

EDIT: just looked at OCUK, they've got plenty of 120gb SSD for £50, would you recommend any, or are they pretty much the same?

Samsung 750 EVO, was £59.99 now £49.99
Intel 540 series again £49.99
Kingston V300 also £49.99
 
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Bought the Samsung 750 EVO, seemed to have the highest read and writes, also the biggest discount. This will be my first SSD, hopefully with the free next day delivery, should be with me Tuesday. Think I will wait until then before I install windows on any drive, seems counter intuitive, if I have to format the drive to run as storage rather than OS.

The current HDD seems to have some sort of adapter for securing the screws in the laptop, will i need one for the SSD?
 
somehow, my laptop is now working. I took it back to work, and was going to create a live Linux USB, installed it to the usb drive, plugged it in to the laptop, turned on the power and it booted up.

I can only assume that it might of had something to do with the USB driver, as I unplugged an external hard drive on Friday evening when I shut down the laptop. Perhaps I didn't do the 'safely remove hardware' procedure.

anyway, I'm creating a back up of all my files while the laptop is currently working, and waiting for my SSD to arrive tomorrow.
 
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