Sending a hard drive for repair

ICIT2LOL · 24 Feb 2013

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Troll Hunter said:

Hi vvl; If & when you find out that your HD is toast & it is impossible to get it working..Also if you want to kill everything on it, I would suggest that a very strong magnet should insure everything is wiped clean before you trash it.."Just to be sure"(Aliens)..

I would take a stonger magnet than most people have to ensure the data is wiped. Smashing it with a hammer is more effective (and fun?).

Yep and if you are careful you can retrieve the super magnets inside for sticking around the workshop to hang tools on my "office" is plastered with them - it you want to know how to remove them - ask:)

vvl · 24 Feb 2013

Brink said:

vvl,

If it turns out that the HDD is dead and not readable on your friends PC, then if you like, you could use the tutorial below to help reinstall and activate your Windows 7 on your laptop with a new HDD.

Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

Hey Brink, thanks for the help and that link was really helpful

I have managed to reinstall a new hdd as well as create a USB Windows 7 installer. However when I click the "install now" button, an error messages popped up

It reads:

Load Driver
A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, please insert it now.

Note: if the Windows installation media is in the CD/DVD drive, you can safely remove it for this step.

By the way my laptop model is Dell XPS 15 L502X

Edit: found the solution to the error messages. Apparently you just need to unplug the USB containing windows 7 installation and plug it in to another USB port.

Brink · 24 Feb 2013

vvl,

Double check your BIOS settings to make sure that you have it set to use "SATA" or "AHCI" and not RAID, and to make sure that the hard drive for Windows is listed first in the boot priority list.

If you still get the error, then try loading your Dell XPS 15 L502X SATA/AHCI drivers.

SATA Driver - Load in Windows 7 or Vista Setup

indianacarnie · 24 Feb 2013

Drivers for XPS 15 (L502X)

But listen to Brink for sure and first! The mans a super-guru!

vvl · 24 Feb 2013

indianacarnie said:

Drivers for XPS 15 (L502X)

But listen to Brink for sure and first! The mans a super-guru!

Hi indianacarnie,
Thank you very much mate. Greatly appreciated!

ICIT2LOL · 24 Feb 2013

Hum good to see you are making some headway now vvl :)

bobkn · 24 Feb 2013

vvl said:

Brink said:

vvl,

If it turns out that the HDD is dead and not readable on your friends PC, then if you like, you could use the tutorial below to help reinstall and activate your Windows 7 on your laptop with a new HDD.

Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7

Hey Brink, thanks for the help and that link was really helpful

I have managed to reinstall a new hdd as well as create a USB Windows 7 installer. However when I click the "install now" button, an error messages popped up

It reads:

Load Driver
A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. If you have a driver floppy disk, CD, DVD, or USB flash drive, please insert it now.

Note: if the Windows installation media is in the CD/DVD drive, you can safely remove it for this step.

By the way my laptop model is Dell XPS 15 L502X

Edit: found the solution to the error messages. Apparently you just need to unplug the USB containing windows 7 installation and plug it in to another USB port.

The "driver is missing" error is frequently due to bad Win7 install media. That can be due to a bad burn of a DVD from an .iso. The common suggested fix is to re-burn the disk at 4X or below. (I always burn at max speed using Nero, but then verify the burn after. Doesn't save much time, I admit.)

It may also be worthwhile checking the integrity of the .iso, if you can find a hash code (not the sort associated with Twitter) and a utility to check it. Haven't done it in a while, so my Web search wouldn't be any better than yours.