Christmas Present - w510, hard disk crashed during first bootup

Everybody,

Thought will share my experience with you all.
I received the w510 on Christmas eve(ordered on the 14th) well in time for Christmas.
I opened it, booted it, started creating the recovery disks and the hard disk crashed. Since then it hasn't booted.
I called the support line, but they don't have any records of my laptop yet.
The agent said that their systems might not have been updated, and have to call back on Monday / Tuesday.

Do reply if anybody has experienced anything similar.

Cheers ..

 

Sometimes it takes up to 2 weeks for the machine gets registered in the database, especially if it is during holiday.

If you still don't get the issue resolved on Monday/Tuesday, do a post at forum.lenovo.com, which is the official Lenovo forum.

 

When you say it doesn't boot, that's kind of a wide path. Does it boot to the BIOS? You could try a Linux disc while you wait for Lenovo to send you a hard drive.

 

Does "official Lenovo forum" mean you can expect to receive support from Lenovo? Or is it community support?

 

Hard disk crashed? As in a blue screen? Did it happen as you were making recovery disks? You should provide some more detailed info to us so we can help you, and to Lenovo support so they have a better idea of what needs to be done to your machine.

 

My apologies, should have given a bit more details, was venting a bit.

The first time I encountered the error was when I had first booted the laptop and started creating the recovery disks. At that point I was able to use the laptop properly. But while in the middle of creating the second disk (not the boot one, but the data / drivers / apps) I got the blue screen. So immediately called the agent.

After talking to the agent I ran the hard disk diagnostics from the bios. About one third into the test, it detected that there is an hard disk error, so there was no point trying to install Linux or reinstalling Windows on that hard drive. Then last night I tried installing Windows (and Linux) on another hard disk. The initial setup process completes, but when the installation reboots I get the same error - Error #0000, hardware failure. This happens on both Windows and Linux installation and the process doesn't complete. So I suspect there is some other hard ware problem and not just a bad hard drive.

Oh, the Seagate hard drive (that came with the laptop) has gone bad now, because my other laptops aren't detecting it. So I think whatever is wrong might be corrupting the hard disks too.

I will try couple more things today before calling the help line on Monday.

Appreciate your help.

 

It's a peer-to-peer support forum. There are a few Lenovo employees who help out on a volunteer basis, but there is no guarantee that any particular question will get an answer from a Lenovo employee. If your hard drive is truly bad, calling the support line on Monday or Tuesday is the route to take.

 

Why is it some companies like Microsoft, VMWare and others offer forums where their engineers, MVPs, PMs, etc. answer questions on an official basis yet we have other companies like Lenovo that don't?

Sure seems like a good way to offer support for the products they are selling.

 

If you tried another drive and install disks from two different operating systems, I would agree the machine you received has a serious defect. I would return it asap.

 

I guess some companies have different view of what social media is and what role they should play in the grand scheme of things. Some companies have already formed a view, while others are still in search phase and want to see what potential benefits that social media may provide.

Also, Lenovo forum do have MVPs, i am one of these people, so is Erik. But we generally help out with technical problems, etc.

 

Everybody,

Thanks for all your responses.

Some progress on my end.
I couldn't wait until Monday for an answer, so went through the installation process yet again on another (third) drive. This time everything completed successfully and I got a working machine sometime in the afternoon.
Left it running for couple of hours and got a new error
Error 2100: HDD0 (Hard disk drive) initialization error (1)

Searching through the forums looks like this might be because the hard drive was not connected properly or there is a firmware update on the Seagate drive thats incompatible with the hardware. I reconnected the hard drive and the machine booted successfully. I have set the machine to run through the night.

Can't wait for 7 am ET when I can get one of the reps on the horn.

Appreciate all your help.

 

Really? Do you have a link to the Lenovo MVP program description?

 

Lenovo don't have an in house MVP program, they just use Microsoft's MVP program in its place. HP use something similar.

I guess it is cost saving approach to social media investment.

 

lenovo does host its own forum, this one on NBR ain't it.

besides, any time you have an immediate problem like this one which is bad hardware and particularly since the machine is under warranty, forum support is not the first route to take.

 

Not quite. It's more like:

Lenovo has a forum; HP has a forum; NBR has a forum; everybody has a forum.

Microsoft has an MVP program. Some MVPs belong to forums.

 

Crystal clear.

Reminds me of classes in logic and set theory, eons ago.

 

I do, in fact.

Renee

 

This is true, and just because someone is a MVP and SME on some aspect of a Microsoft product, doesn't mean the Microsoft MVP cred is applicable for Lenovo hardware. They have NOTHING so do with each other.

 

there are many Microsoft MVP awards category, there is a category called general desktop experience, which is not directly related to any specific Microsoft product.

I got the Microsoft MVP only because of my participation in Lenovo forum and NBR Lenovo sub-forum.

 

now that everyone is clear that microsoft MVPs have no direct ties with lenovo or their forum, let's get back on topic.

i think we were discussing a crashed hard drive...