M17x Major Issues.

Hey guys,

I'm having a major issues with my M17x, i've tried a few things to fix this, but i'm out of my depth now and really could use some experience advice.

Basically, I was having an issue with my AC charger not working, (the light flashes, but it does not charge the battery), usually shutting down the laptop and removing the battery solves this. However, after doing this windows failed to start. When attempting to do a Windows restore, no hard drives were displayed, so I could not attempt any kind of restore.

I looked on BIOS and the hard drive does seem to be displayed there. So the next step I took was to go on to the Dell site and transfer the latest Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver to a USB stick. After this I then put my Windows CD in and attempted to reinstall it. However when attempting to install this, I get asked to select a driver to install. The option from the USB stick is available. But after a while of loading it does not display any hard drives available to install.

So that's basically the crux of my issue. I'm not precious about getting back my files e.t.c, but if there's anyway to just do a clean reboot of windows that'd be fine. But i'm way out of my depth now as I said earlier.

Any help would be hugely appreciated as i'm pretty close to giving up.

Thanks!

 

Make sure it's in AHCI mode in BIOS. Sounds like probably a damaged boot sector can try a disk repair utility or the hdd itself may have gotten damaged in which case you'll probably need a new one. I have a few laptop drives around that no longer read when inside a laptop but work fine when used as external usb hookups, none of them seem to be repairable in any fashion worth doing and still work fine as backup drives.

 

have u try removing the coincell battery? are there any beeps during post when u turn on the laptop?

 

Hey thanks for the replies guys:

@pinoy_92, there's no kind of beeping, the laptop starts normally despite the lack of booting windows / ability to locate a hard drive.

@ikisat. As far as I can tell it is in AHCI mode in BIOS, for the SATA operation. The fixed HDD is identified on there too as ST9500423AS 500gb. I'll include the following stuff too, since i'm not sure what's relevant and what isn't.

• Legacy Boot: Hard Drive
• Boot options: {last}
• UEFI Boot: UEFI DVD1 PATH1
• Boot list option: UEFI

I've also tested the diagnostics tool in boot options. Everything seems fine except the hard drive, returns this message after testing:

Error Code: 2000-0142
Validation: 94741
Msg: Hard Drive 0 - S/N 6WR0ZMXZ. Short test unsuccessful.

I assume this means there's a big problem, Is this fixable, or is it not?

Thanks!

 

Hi, What windows DVD did you try? I've seen people having the same issues of drives missing when selecting UEFI Boot - the media must be UEFI enabled, like the win 8 DVD is.

Try turning off UEFI and see if the USB and drive are then available.

 

Hey Micky,

I was attempting to use the Windows DVD which the laptop came with. Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64 Bit.

I believe I have turned off UEFI Boot, choosing instead Legacy from the CD/DVD drive. Windows then proceeded to load some files, and continued to the starting windows screen. The windows 7 setup screen then appears offering the choice to install or repair. Unfortunately both options seem to result in a crash at 'setup is starting'

 

Sorry mate but 2000-0142 is hdd failure, contact AW tech support and claim hdd replacement ASAP

 

I was going on the uefi options you showed above. I haven't played with them but it looks to me like UEFI is enabled.

I asked about the install media as OEM is probably not uefi - at least not on win 7. You could also try to default the BIOS and see what options show then.

Seems you can boot from the DVD but it then fails attempting to install to the drive.

 

Hey again guys,

I found a little advice stating to do the following:

'Insert the Windows CD/DVD into your CD/DVD drive, and then restart your computer.
When you see the "Press any key to boot from CD" message, press a key to start the computer from the Windows CD/DVD.


Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD/DVD drive if you are prompted.
When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press 'R' to start the Recovery Console.

If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you want to access from the Recovery Console.

When you are prompted, type the Administrator password. If you don't know the administrator password, there probably isn't one so just press Enter/Return.
At the command prompt (C:\>), type

chkdsk /r

(note the space between chkdsk and /r)
and press Return/Enter.
When the scan finishes, re-start.'

This seems to fit the error code, but as I mentioned I can't actually get the recovery console to start up, as it seems to freeze on 'setup is starting...'.. I also attempted to change the Legacy boot order to the CD/DVD drive first but this doesn't seem to have improved anything.

Unfortunately, my warranty has expired a month before this happened. I'm not sure I have any claim on a new HDD or a laptop service without it costing a bomb.

 

All I can say is to try different uefi options to get rid of it. The drive may well have failed but when people were experimenting with uefi and win 8 drives disappeared with some settings and only the DVD was accessible.

 

try reseatting the HDD and running the PSA again, if it comes up with the same error you'll have to replace the Hard Drive.