Will Not Boot - Bad Pool Header

YoYo155 · 08 Dec 2013

bigmck said:

bnailchi said:

I spoke to my husband about it and he would like to try replacing the hard drive even with the chance of it dying completely. He just needs to determine where to get a reasonable price that likely would need to be shipped to us since we don't live near many stores.

Sorry but I don't have any further information about the drive in terms of manufacturer. How would I find out if it's not included in our specs?

Thanks.

BJ

You can put any hard drive in. The brand does not matter. Western Digital is a good brand. There are others also. You can look here Newegg.com - 500 gb internal hard drive and they will mail to you. You should be able to find a 500 GB in the $70 range.

I was looking for the brand in order to suggest a specific testing procedure.

bnailchi · 09 Dec 2013

Hopefully, this is the number you requested.

Fixed HDD ST9500325AS (500GB)

And thanks, BigMck for the info about where to get a hard drive. We will hold on purchasing one until we complete this process with YoYo155.

Thanks to both of you.

BJ

YoYo155 · 09 Dec 2013

bnailchi said:

Fixed HDD ST9500325AS (500GB)

It is, thanks :).
The ST at the start of model name means its a Seagate drive, so SeeTools is the preferred method
to use as it has the best diagnostic capabilities on its native brand.

Are you out of your warranty period?
If you are you can try re-seating (remove it and reconnect it after a few minutes) the drive and power cycling it.

Golden said:

1. Power off laptop, unplug power lead, and remove battery.
2. Press and hold down the on/off button for 30 seconds, then release
3. Disconnect the SSD
4. Press and hold the on/off button for another 30 seconds, then release
5. Reconnect SSD, reinsert battery, reconnect power lead.
6. Insert installation USB, reboot and install as normal

bnailchi · 12 Dec 2013

No, his laptop is no longer under warranty as of 8/2013.

Does step 2 mean the power button to turn on the computer?

In Step 3, what is the SSD?

In Step 6, what installation USB?

Thanks. BJ

YoYo155 · 13 Dec 2013

Haha oops, that was tailored to a slightly different usage case

.

Here is a "fixed" version.
And yes step #2 referrers to the power button.

1. Power off laptop, unplug power lead, and remove battery.
2. Press and hold down the on/off button for 30 seconds, then release.
3. Disconnect the HDD.
4. Press and hold the on/off button for another 30 seconds, then release.
5. Reconnect the HDD, reinsert battery, reconnect power lead.

bnailchi · 17 Dec 2013

Ok. I followed the process to remove the battery and hard drive and then put it all back together. That went fine.

When I turned on the laptop, it went to Launch Repair and ran through that process much more quickly than before but ended with the same result - that it cannot repair the problem.

So, I put in the USB with SeaTools and ran the long test. I am experiencing the same problem I did before - it says it's testing but no numbers (percentages, etc) moving anywhere - appears to be frozen.

I then tried the short test. Same issue as with the long test - no numbers moving - appears to be frozen.

What now?

Thanks as always.

BJ

YoYo155 · 17 Dec 2013

Well in spite of the fact that the condition of the hard-drive isn't looking great; the way I see it
is that you don't have much to lose with cleanly installing Windows and see how it holds up.

I recommend keeping to the steps detailed in this tutorial:

Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

Let us know how it goes :) .

bnailchi · 19 Dec 2013

Preparations for Clean Reinstall
December 19, 2013

I am following the steps from How to Clean Reinstall a Factory OEM Windows 7 at Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

I completed Steps 1 and 2 to create a bootable USB drive. It is a generic drive with 4GB of free memory.

At the end of Step 4 of 4: Creating bootable USB drive, I was given a message:
“Status: Files copied successfully. However, we were unable to run bootsect to make the USB device bootable. If you need assistance with bootsect, please click the “Online Help” link above for more information.”

I clicked on the Online Help link which took me to the Microsoft Store. Under the Troubleshooting section, I found a question about bootsect, which is my issue. It says:
“To make the USB device bootable, you need to run a tool named bootsect.exe. In some cases, this tool needs to be downloaded from your Microsoft Store account. This may happen if you're trying to create a 64-bit bootable USB device from a 32-bit version of Windows.”

However, I don’t need a 32-bit version. I need a 64-bit version, which is what I should be getting already. So, it appears that this solution does not apply to my situation, but I need bootsect in order to create a bootable USB drive. Any suggestions as to what I can do now?

Thanks.

BJ

bigmck · 19 Dec 2013

See if this tutorial on making a bootable USB helps solve your problem. Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool Also, just to be sure. You had a 64 bit version of Win 7 before and you downloaded the 64 bit ISO, correct.

bnailchi · 22 Dec 2013

BigMcK,

Thanks for the suggestion for an alternative to create a bootable USB. It appears to have worked (that is, the process completed and I had no error messages). So, I expect I am ready to do the clean install.

In reviewing the 20 steps on How to Clean Reinstall a Factory OEM Windows 7, I completed Steps 1 and 2 by creating a bootable USB.

My husband says it is not necessary to try to save any data files. So, I can skip Step 3.

Given that I am unable to boot Windows 7, I don't know how to do Step 4 (make recovery disks) and Step 5 (run an audit of hardware and software). In my situation, do I just skip these and go straight to Step 8 (boot the Windows 7 installer)? NOTE: I did Step 5 (got product key) and found the website with all of the downloads for his laptop for Step 7 (Product Support for Inspiron 15R 5520 at file:///C:/Users/Bar/Desktop/Product%20support%20for%20Inspiron%2015R%205520.html).

My questions at this point are:

* Do I skip Steps 4 and 5 since I cannot boot Windows or is this a necessary step? If so, how else might I do this?

* Once I reinstall Windows 7, do I need to download each of the many, many downloads listed on the Product Support website? Is there a streamlined way to do this or do I need to download each one, one by one?

* Should I go straight to Step 8 (skipping Steps 4 and 5) and just try a clean reinstall, if that is possible given the possibility of a messed up hard drive?

And, yes, the Dell Inspiron is a 64-bit OS and that is what I prepared on the USB drive.

Thanks again!

BJ