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    Reformatting a "dead" drive? HELP needed !

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by cspencer, Jun 8, 2009.

  1. cspencer

    cspencer Newbie

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    Recently I reinstalled Vista on my secondary computer, the Dell Inspiron 6400. In the process of upgrading to SP1 I got an error. On reboot, the computer would go into a freeze and display an error message.

    0xc01a001d

    After giving up on the drive, I've decided to just reformat it and re-install vista. The problem being I can't find the drive when i attach it to a USB HDD setup and plug it into my working computer. (Vista OS) It will come up saying installing driver software for HDD Sata Bridge (never does this with my normal secondary drive) and will then say no software could be found. My assumption being that this is being caused by the error, so what do i do to find my drive?

    Also, when I tried reinstalling windows on the drive (while in the inspiron) it would freeze when i selected reformat and would never work, after a few tries at least.

    Any suggestions would be great! Thanks
     
    cspencer, Jun 8, 2009
    #1
  2. K-TRON

    K-TRON Hi, I'm Jimmy Diesel ^_^

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    Have you tried connecting the drive directly to a desktop via a SATA cable and power connector?
    I see two possible issues:
    1) the drive may be on its last legs
    or
    2) the optical drive is not reading/copying data from the windows discs properly, causing an error message to occur.

    I know on my E1505 which is the same as the insprion 6400, the optical drive is very flaky. It works on and off and often fails when reading even my windows discs.
    You may want to try another optical drive if its a cd related problem.

    If the drive isnt detected when directly connected to a desktop, than there is a problem with your harddrive.

    K-TRON
     
    K-TRON, Jun 8, 2009
    #2