HDD failure with XPS1530

Hey guys,

My 1530 will no longer boot into windows, it just wants to run Check Disk and then proceeds to give me a blue screen of death every time. When trying to boot in safemode it freezes at crcdisk.sys. I have run startup diagnostics and get an error code 2000-0142 'Hard drive 1 - self test unsuccessful. Status 79.' From what I have read from other posts on here and other sites this means the hard drive needs to be replaced. Anyways, I have an external HDD enclosure that I have been able to use to access the files on the drive to backup everything.

My question is how can I backup the files that are currently in the 'Personal Safe' folder (upek fingerprint reader). Where are the files physically stored and can they be accessed if sent to another computer which does not have a finger print reader? I have a ton of important info on there since my last backup that I need.

Any help is useful.

Thanks

 

I used to have this problem quite a bit.

Have you got the Vista/Windows 7 Disc? If so, put it in and boot from it, then select repair computer.

Should do the trick.

Adam

 

Thanks I will try that next.

Some history on the issue....

Issue #1
I wanted to burn some files onto a dvd however I had no software installed in order to do that. So I grabbed the Roxio dvd that came with the laptop, about half way through the installation the installer froze. I let it sit for about an hour and there was no progress so I tried ctrl+alt+del in order to kill the application however everything was frozen so that did nothing. I ended up manually turning the system off and rebooting. From then on the DVD drive had disappeared from windows explorer and in device manager there was an error about drivers not being loaded. When trying to load the latest firmware / drivers I got a message saying the latest version was already installed. I could load and eject DVDs fine however windows would not register that the drive existed so nothing could be accessed.

Issue #2
It appears that as a result of whatever happened to the dvd drive, the SD card that I had in the card reader at the time became corrupted. The SD card that just so happened to have the photos from my Mexican vacation that I had just gotten home from the day before. Great huh? I ended up downloading some software that was able to recover all the pictures from the SD card. Problem solved.

Issue #1 revisited...
When searching online I came across a Microsoft utility that fixes the very problem I was having with my DVD drive. I gave that a shot and it actually appeared to fix the issue. The drive was now visible in windows explorer so I tried putting in a movie and it worked flawlessly. Problem solved...

Issue #3
For whatever reason, after getting the DVD drive working again I had to reboot the system for an unrelated reason. That first reboot after getting the DVD drive fixed is when the blue screen of death appeared and the HDD error code. Maybe it is related, maybe not. With the HDD installed in the laptop, if I run a diagnostic test via setup I get an error code (0142). However, if I run Western Digitals HDD diagnostic test with the drive hooked up externally to another system there are no errors given, it passes all tests. This makes me think the drive is fine and that it is a motherboard problem...