HARD DRIVE PROBLEMS

[michelle9]

Hello,
I just wonder If anyone out there can help me please?
My son has a Dell Inspiron M5030 & I'm getting a message on It saying that the Hard Drive Is not being recognised!
What exactly does that mean & how can I rectify the problem please?

 

[smorizio]

Hello,
I just wonder If anyone out there can help me please?
My son has a Dell Inspiron M5030 & I'm getting a message on It saying that the Hard Drive Is not being recognised!
What exactly does that mean & how can I rectify the problem please?

if your son has not opened the case then the drive or mb controller may have failed. before you order a new hard drive open the case and see that the hard drive has it power plug plugged in and the data cable. if they are turn on the pc and see if the hard drive is spinning up with your hand. if it spiing up and down..or not at all the drive has died. atthis point i would buy a new drive and if you want to try and pull the data off buy a cheap usb to sata or ide connector cable(depending on the drive) put the new drive in and run the dell restore cd program. when windows is back on and updated try plugging in the old drive. if it see but does not mount you may be able to recover the data with a software recovery. if not if you want the data on the drive you have to send it to a data recovery lab..$$$$$$

 

[mbarnes86]

Hi

The Inspiron M5030 is a laptop so you can't see much while the hard drive is in the laptop
On most Dell Laptops the drive is in a tray held in place by one or 2 screws.

Just occasionally a bad connection can be cured by removing & re inserting the tray containing the hard drive
(disconnect power supply and remove battery before removing hard disk)

If you have access to another desktop PC with sata hard disk controller you may be able to test the drive.
BUT if you have valuable data (which has not been backed up) on the hard drive leave testing & recovery to a expert

The major hard disk manufacturers provide a diagnostic boot CD iso file (which needs to be burnt to CD using a program such as ImgBurn) and Seagate & Western Digital provide a Windows Diagnostic program.
None of these are any use if the BIOS can not detect the hard disk or it is not spinning.
Check if your Dell had a one year or 3 year warantee (can be found on Dell Website from serial number)

regards
Mike Barnes