You know your laptop is messed up when...

I own a Dell XPS laptop, not more than 2 years old. I have had nothing but problems with it from day one. So far I have gone through more than six hard drives, which had failed some way or another, and every part in the case has been replaced at least twice.

And now my latest problem, another hard drive. When it started to go bad, the ball bearing was going, I got so pissed off at it that I didn't touch it for the whole '07 summer and fall, and then some, because I didn't wanna have to deal with it. The other day I decide to try and mess with the drive. Upon turning on the system I noticed the bearing wasn't buzzing like crazy and figured the drive would be fine if I let the system sit still and never move it (you know like a desktop system, oh wait, this is a laptop...(?). So I attempted to do a fresh Windows install. I partitioned the drive at 30gig C: and rest D:. Windows installed fine so I started to do all the lovely updates. All the critical updates go well. Attempting to update and install IE7 the system started to give errors but able to get through the install. So now I try and update WMP to 11, yet again, errors, but this time the system becomes unusable, okay time to reinstall Windows again. I get to the same spot, install WMP11, look errors. This time when reinstalling Windows I don't install WMP11, no problems so far. I attempt to run a chkdsk on the drive, error, wth. Try to make a ghost image of the drive, 25% into it, error, unreadable sector. I ran the diagnostic thing Dell ships with their systems, upon running the "write to hard drive" test I had some fun. When running the test for 12% of the total drive, I couldn't suffer though anymore, I encountered 76 errors, dead sectors and such. At that rate there would have been well over 600 errors for the whole drive.

Why oh why did I buy this "high-end" laptop? Well at least I learned something from this, I think you can guess it.

Sorry, excuss my ranting, needed to get it off my chest.

 

Seems you have a lemon. Try getting Dell to replace it, and if they wont sue them. Some guy did that and made some money because they negated some warranty clause. What XPS do you have? Why not just go out and get yourself your own hdd and install it yourself. Make sure that there are no connection issues and drop a new drive in. A 200gb 7.2k notebook drive is under $100 then you get to control the manufacturer. Good luck...and hey, maybe you can just sell it, many people would KILL for a XPS (ok, I wouldn't kill, but it would be a sick laptop anyways.)

 

Question: after reinstalling windows are you installing the drivers in the proper order like dell notebook system software, then chipset driver and so forth?... if not it may be why things are not working properly.. Dell systems are very picky about when and the order drivers are installed... the notebook system software contains all of the updates for windows needed before you actually do the windows updates .. if you havnt been doing that give it a try

 

Well at least you know its not a PEBKAC error, because it would be much more difficult to resolve

 

Are you sure? hehe

I think I have the perfect solution. I will send you a check for $300 or trade my existing older pc hunk o crapola and then you will never have to deal with it again.

 

Which XPS is this?

 

Yes I'm installing the drivers properly. The driver install issue can't cause a ball bearing to crap out and kill nearly all the sectors on my drive. And I was using the most up-to-date drivers on Dell website, when I say up-to-date, I mean the over two year old drivers they have posted...

No it's not a PEBKAC error >.<

It's an XPS M170. I believe 2-3 models before the current.

 

I don't understand why you're going through so many hard drives.
Is there something about this laptop that destroys hard drives or do you just have really bad luck with hard drives?

 

I don't know, and would kind of like to know. Couple of my friends suggested over heating for the ball bearings to go, which, cause it's a laptop, could be possible. Because of how many drives have gone bad, I try to always keep the system laying flat, with the fans open. I have never noticed the system running too terribly hot though. Maybe over heating and bad luck along with possibly other things.

 

Which hard drive are u replacing it with? I like WD.

 

Maybe you should try FDB bearings?

its fuild, not actual metal balls running around in a track.