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    I think my hdd may be dead

    Discussion in 'Sager and Clevo' started by cradle_emperor, Dec 10, 2011.

  1. cradle_emperor

    cradle_emperor Notebook Consultant

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    My week old lotus p150hm just BSODed, then rebooted, and kept showing this message
    PXE-E61 : Media test failure , check cable
    PXE-M0F : Exiting PXE ROM.
    And it wont boot.

    When i check the bios it doesnt seem to recognize the HDD in the sata port.

    Are there some things i can try before i send back to malibal?
    I swapped out my odd for a caddy so i cant boot from disk
     
  2. cradle_emperor

    cradle_emperor Notebook Consultant

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    I tried turning it on again after 10 minutes and now the drive is detected, and shows up to the "starting windows" screen with the windows logo,
    And then hung for about 5 minutes then bsoded again. The bsod said something like
    "Bad system config info" not 100%sure as it disappeared quickly
    Then it rebooted and the drive is undetectable again
     
  3. PatchySan

    PatchySan Om Noms Kit Kat

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    It does sound like symptoms of a hard drive going bad unfortunately. I came across a notebook that had similar behaviour to yours, works for a moment then disappears to PXE-ROM. I managed to take it out and test the drive via a caddy using CrystalDiskInfo and it confirmed my suspicions that the drive was going bad. I had to get a replacement drive and the notebook worked normally after.
     
  4. b0b1man

    b0b1man Notebook Deity

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    I hate Hitachi, all my drives that failed were Hitachi.
     
  5. cradle_emperor

    cradle_emperor Notebook Consultant

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    Yeah the drive kinda comes and goes. And when it does work, it BSODS after a couple of minutes.

    Its frustrating as im leaving for a trip on the 16th and i want to have the laptop along :(
     
  6. MrDJ

    MrDJ Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Download who crashed which will give you the full dump info of the bsod. Can't link to it as on mobile phone
     
  7. SMOKE_SKULL

    SMOKE_SKULL Notebook Deity

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    Maybe they will rush you out a replacement drive. Too bad the damn drives are so pricey now. Maybe you can get a loaner drive to use for a while. Seagate has an excellent software for copying data to a new drive. Only takes a few minutes.
     
  8. Anthony@MALIBAL

    Anthony@MALIBAL Company Representative

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    It's entirely possible that the hard drive is failing. Those messages you listed just indicate that your machine fell back to a network boot because it couldn't find the hard drive- not necessarily that the drive has failed.

    I'd highly recommend running Hiren's BootCD and checking the hard drive.

    Hiren's BootCD 15.1 - All in one Bootable CD » www.hiren.info

    You may also want to check the memory with this as well, because failed memory might have the same issues.

    If you continue to have problems, or the tests confirm it's a failing drive, please contact us directly.
     
  9. cradle_emperor

    cradle_emperor Notebook Consultant

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    How can one confirm if its a problem with the ram or the hdd?

    And i dont have a disk drive as i swapped out for a caddy
     
  10. SevenK

    SevenK Notebook Guru

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    Ram seldom fails and from my long desktop experience, it is always a problem with the hard disk and network card. My network card seems to fry up like every 1.5yrs lol.
     
  11. Anthony@MALIBAL

    Anthony@MALIBAL Company Representative

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