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PC Laptop dead - help?

G

glosterseagul

macrumors regular
Original poster
Primary hard disk drive not found

fixed optical drive not found

no bootable devices--strike f1 to retry boot, f2 for setup utility



Dell Inspiron 8200....(not) running xp pro
 
or where can I go for help.

😡

No wonder I prefer Macs ...I HATE ***** PC's. Mind you I wouldn't know what to do in OSX. OS9 I'd have more of a chance.....but my Mac aint bust!
 
anandtech.com or arstechnicia.com are both very good PC user forums. They might have better answers there. Or call Dell, if it's a recent machine it should still be under warranty and they'll prolly fix it for free.

BEN
 
If it's out of warranty, try the 12 gauge medication.

Here's what you need:

Big skeet flinger.
12ga shotgun
#7 birdshot
1 open field.

Then buy a PowerBook
 
glosterseagul said:
Primary hard disk drive not found

fixed optical drive not found

no bootable devices--strike f1 to retry boot, f2 for setup utility



Dell Inspiron 8200....(not) running xp pro
Click to expand...

When you enter your bios and you set it to boot off of the CDrom does it boot? If not, have you done auto detect in the bios to try and find the Hard Drive under one of your IDE channels?
 
I think you are screwed. It sounds like the controller card died on the laptop. Nothing short of replacing the controller card is going to fix the problem. Here's the kicker. The controller card in 99.997% of the time is located on the motherboard of the laptop. Its one of top 5 expensive parts of the laptop. Unless you are under warrantee it would probably cost you more to repair the laptop then go out and purchase a new on.

Here is the good news. The data on the laptop's hard drive is prob still there and good. Its now a matter of getting anything important off the hard drive.
 
SiliconAddict said:
The data on the laptop's hard drive is prob still there and good. Its now a matter of getting anything important off the hard drive.
Click to expand...

That should be fairly easy if you have access to another computer, preferrably a desktop. If you've got access to a desktop, get a converter to convert the laptop-drive plug to a standard ATA plug (this splits power and data into different plugs), and put it in the desktop as a second drive.

If you've got access to another laptop only, get a external case for the drive and use it as an external disk.
 
jknight8907 said:
That should be fairly easy if you have access to another computer, preferrably a desktop. If you've got access to a desktop, get a converter to convert the laptop-drive plug to a standard ATA plug (this splits power and data into different plugs), and put it in the desktop as a second drive.

If you've got access to another laptop only, get a external case for the drive and use it as an external disk.
Click to expand...


Heck. If you have a friend who also has a dell laptop swap drives. XP should redetect most of the hardware if not http://support.dell.com and download the basic drivers for the network card and offload the files.

If glosterseagul wasn't in Europe I would ship him one of my external hard drive cages. Damn shipping prices. 🙁
 
SiliconAddict said:
Heck. If you have a friend who also has a dell laptop swap drives.
Click to expand...

Yeah. Sure. You can crack open my Dell notebook and void the warranty, go ahead, I mean, those things NEVER break.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
 
Probably still worth it to press F2, and see if the BIOS detects the drives. If not, that's one dead laptop you've got there.... 😱
 
jknight8907 said:
Yeah. Sure. You can crack open my Dell notebook and void the warranty, go ahead, I mean, those things NEVER break.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
Click to expand...

You obviously know nothing about dell laptops. Most models have their HD arranged so you can externally replace them. Unlike Apple innovation you don't void the warrantee by upgrading your hard drive. Take out one screw slide the drive out and replace. Stop talking about things you know nothing about. 🙄
 
Dell Laptops = bad news. We have a couple at work that we wanted to get larger hard drives for... after fighting with Dell and sending back several drives we found out that the laptop wouldn't accept drives larger than what it came with (which were piddly.) Now we use IBM Thinkpads.
 
glosterseagul said:
or where can I go for help.

😡

No wonder I prefer Macs ...I HATE ***** PC's. Mind you I wouldn't know what to do in OSX. OS9 I'd have more of a chance.....but my Mac aint bust!
Click to expand...

www.dell.com check their support checks. i believe with have a knownledge and forums. i'd bet dollars to doughnuts that your problem is in the knowledge base.
 
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