Scott said:
I have a Dell laptop that was dropped from about 3ft and landed on front
corner. No damage is visible on the laptop. When powering on the laptop, the
Dell screen loads as normal and transitions to the Windows XP screen. After
the normal amount of time the screen goes black then it takes about 40-45
minutes to load the desktop. Once it loads, everything seems to work fine.
There are no error messages but just takes 40 minutes to load the desktop.
Does anyone have ideas of what may be causing this or how to fix?
The hard drive can be sensitive to shock. You could start by running
the drive diagnostic provided by the hard drive manufacturer. For example,
if the drive was Seagate or Maxtor, you'd go to the download section
of seagate.com . The diagnostic may not be very verbose, and may just
give an error number. If you see a fail and an error number, then by all means,
purchase another 2.5" drive and transfer over all the data. (An adapter
like the following, can be used to temporarily connect a new drive, via
a USB2 interface, to the computer for data transfer. Drive type can be
IDE or SATA, which is something else you have to check for, before purchase
of a new, bare hard drive mechanism.)
BYTECC BT-300 USB 2.0 to IDE/SATA Adapter $25
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102
You can also do some basic checks with the HDTune program from hdtune.com .
There is a free version for download. The benchmark is read-only on the
free one, and what you'd be checking for there, is abnormally low results.
(My current drive gives a curve, with 60MB/sec at the beginning of the
disk, and 40MB/sec near the end of the disk. The curved shape is normal.)
Also, listen for mechanical noises while the test is running. The initial
transfer rate curve test should be quiet - if you hear "clunking" while the
curve is being slowly drawn, the drive is having trouble. The drive will
be noisier during the seek rate test after the curve is drawn (and you
could stop the test, before it gets to that step). There is a "stop"
button you can click, when you've seen enough.
The tool also has an Info tab, and shows basic cable transfer rate mode
information. For example, mine is UDMA5 (which is 100MB/sec), which is
normal for my chipset and its IDE interface. If it said it was UDMA capable,
yet was currently running in PIO mode, that would slow the rate that the
disk would operate at. If the OS sees CRC errors coming from the drive,
the response may be to reduce the transfer rate to the disk. PIO (slow)
is what results.
Some other interface could be cracked or broken - if the machine comes
with its own custom hardware diagnostics, you could try running those.
Also, if you haven't done it already, check whether you have prepared
the "recovery media" mentioned in the laptop user manual. Some brands
have the user burn a DVD, consisting of the software that came with
the computer. If the hard drive fails, your only copy of the software
goes with it. The DVD you prepare from the hidden partition on the
hard drive, can be used to return a new replacement hard drive to factory
state, with a fresh copy of the OS and so on. Without that, if you don't burn
the recovery DVD, then you may have to purchase it from the manufacturer.
Some manufacturers stop offering the purchase of the DVD, once the warranty
period is up. If you had a three year warranty, and the machine is four
years old, you may get no help at all from the manufacturer. That is
the first thing I'd attend to, when getting a new computer, is making
that DVD and storing it in a safe place.
If you haven't already, backing up your personal files would be a good
idea. Depending on the damage done, the machine may be headed for
a repair facility, in which case you want to copy your personal data
before they get it. There are all sorts of stories, where a repair
facility (even a local computer shop), will delete all files on the
drive, as part of their "repair procedure". Some have done this,
even when told explicitly by the customer, that the data is not
backed up. So make a backup now.
You can store a lot of backup files, for $100.00. I prefer to see
a small cooling fan on enclosures like this, but the pre-built
external drives typically don't include them.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822101121
This is the empty enclosure I bought a few weeks ago (for less $$$ than this).
It has a 40mm fan on the back, which is still quiet. This one is for
5.25" drives, and I'm currently using it for a DVD burner. The drive
attaches by screws to the bottom, and I think this enclosure will also
take a 3.5". If I was buying a $100 Terabyte drive for backups, I
might fit it in a casing like this. I prefer to package my own
drives, rather than buy the prepackaged ones. It only takes
a few minutes to assemble it and plug in the adapter. This one
has a ribbon cable interface, and since 1TB drives are usually
SATA, I couldn't actually use this for a 1TB drive. So this is
just to illustrate the nice cooling fan on the back, which is
something I look for in an enclosure. The Newegg Advanced search,
offers "Fan:Yes" as a search option, so you can get a listing of
enclosures that come with a fan.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817604006
It could very well be something other than the hard drive, but
that is where I'd start looking.
Paul
