Dell Optiplex 745- HDD is dying only days after I bought it

Diosoth · 12 Jun 2013

I bought a refurbished Dell Optiplex 745 PC with XP Pro installed for cheap. Got it on the 6th, hooked it up on the 10th when I had a dedicated monitor, and began setting it up. Installed Super anti Spyware, a couple other minor programs, and some games, didn't take it online yet.

Now 2 days after I get it, I power down and get a BSOD on shutdown. Reboot, schedule chkdsk to run on restart, and it gets through the first 4 steps okay but hangs on step 5. Reboot, shut down, restart, now the desktop won't load. Restart into safe mode, try to run system restore... fails. It fails system restore 3 times.

I check event viewer and see a pile of errors, all suggesting bad blocks on the HDD. So great, just bought this, HDD is going bad. It started showing errors yesterday, but piled them up today. This is what HD Tune gave me. Almost 30% bad, running rather hot.

I have a backup HDD I can swap with- a WD 500 GB. This PC takes a SATA HDD so it'll be no problem to stick it in. That is, until I go through the process of a fresh XP install plus manually installing the Dell drivers in their proper order since I didn't get any recovery disks with this computer.

HOWEVER... while I can assume the HDD is old and going bad from age, could anything else have caused this? I don't want to stick in a new HDD and find it's dying after 2 days either. It apparently showed no errors for the refurbisher and may have even passed their own tests(event viewer shows nothing from when they worked on it), but it's bad now. ANY cause beyond the HDD being old and past its life cycle?

Diosoth · 12 Jun 2013

A further update-

I messed around with BIOS settings to ensure boot order should I need to fresh install. As for the HDD, Windows took long to boot and just leaving the PC to sit idle in an air conditioned room, the HDD temp is up to 49 C sitting idle. Meanwhile, my W7 Gateway which has been in use all day is still no hotter than 33 C.

Provided I put in a new HDD, should I invest in a PCI slot fan for extra cooling? This Dell has one fan in the front and another in the PSU(I think) and I think it's insufficient- granted, the hot HDD could be a result of it failing, it may be working harder, or maybe it's just a crappy brand of drive.

SandeepP · 20 Jun 2013

Diosoth said:

I bought a refurbished Dell Optiplex 745 PC with XP Pro installed for cheap. Got it on the 6th, hooked it up on the 10th when I had a dedicated monitor, and began setting it up. Installed Super anti Spyware, a couple other minor programs, and some games, didn't take it online yet.

Now 2 days after I get it, I power down and get a BSOD on shutdown. Reboot, schedule chkdsk to run on restart, and it gets through the first 4 steps okay but hangs on step 5. Reboot, shut down, restart, now the desktop won't load. Restart into safe mode, try to run system restore... fails. It fails system restore 3 times.

I check event viewer and see a pile of errors, all suggesting bad blocks on the HDD. So great, just bought this, HDD is going bad. It started showing errors yesterday, but piled them up today. This is what HD Tune gave me. Almost 30% bad, running rather hot.

I have a backup HDD I can swap with- a WD 500 GB. This PC takes a SATA HDD so it'll be no problem to stick it in. That is, until I go through the process of a fresh XP install plus manually installing the Dell drivers in their proper order since I didn't get any recovery disks with this computer.

HOWEVER... while I can assume the HDD is old and going bad from age, could anything else have caused this? I don't want to stick in a new HDD and find it's dying after 2 days either. It apparently showed no errors for the refurbisher and may have even passed their own tests(event viewer shows nothing from when they worked on it), but it's bad now. ANY cause beyond the HDD being old and past its life cycle?

Hi Diosoth,

Thanks for your detailed explanation. It seems to be a faulty hard-drive on the system. You can run the 32 bit dell diagnostics on the hard-drive of the system to confirm the same:

http://dell.to/164mwx3

I believe two fans(chassis and heat-sink) should be enough to ensure optimum temperature inside the system.

Also, let me know if you received any warranty with this refurbished system. As, if it is under warranty I might be able to arrange a replacement hard-drive for you.

Please check the same and keep me posted.

fireberd · 20 Jun 2013

Download the free version of Macrium backup. Backup the hard drive to some external device, such as another hard drive. Then when you swap hard drives you can install everything from the backup and save having to completely reinstall (of course this assumes the data that is on the drive is not corrupted due to the bad blocks).

Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download

The manual install on a Dell is (1) Install Windows (2) Install Dell desktop or laptop system softwares (3) Install Intel motherboard chipset drivers (4) Install device drivers including Video, Dell sound, Ethernet, etc. There may be other optional software downloads on the Dell site. The chipset drivers are key to a successful installation. The Dell supplied sound drivers are also needed for proper sound operation.

Optiplex 745 Dell downloads: http://www.dell.com/support/troubles...t/optiplex-745

Diosoth · 21 Jun 2013

As much as I want to do a HD backup I think far too much of the data is corrupted. Various basic functions, such as changing desktop appearance settings, are either sluggish or unresponsive. Installing Windows fresh and manually installing drivers will be a slow option but not too difficult, and I only spent a few hours with personalized setup so I'm not behind much work. I also do not have the same XP install disk the refurbishing shop used for their install and system restore and repair options seem to be corrupted as well.

I did order new thermal paste since the paste between the heatsink and CPU was all but gone. This desktop case is also not fit to take either a normal case fan or even a PCI slot cooler, but I can rig a PCI cooler exhaust blower into a spot in the back without too much work.

I don't believe I have any warranty- it was purchased from a firm that handles debt collection and PC refurbishing, but sold "as is" and from what I can tell the thing worked fine when it left the seller's hands. Either the HDD is faulty from age(most likely since it's an 80 GB which is far outdated now) or may have been bumped and jostled too much in UPS transit. I paid $65 shipped for the used computer, power cord, keyboard and mouse and return postage for a refund would've been quite high as well as the fact I do have a replacement larger capacity drive on hand(although this leaves me without a spare backup drive for the time being).

AddRAM · 21 Jun 2013

If you can`t get it replaced through the warranty, hard drives are cheap enough.

Diosoth · 21 Jun 2013

I got my replacement WD drive in- a half hour to install XP, then burned a disc to install the 5 needed Dell drivers.

After disassembling the old Samsung drive, it looks like one of the reader heads was damaged slightly, so this drive was no good. It's possible the platter itself was good but with that head apparently bent so slightly it wasn't reading. No idea why it worked fine when I got the PC but then it went bad, beyond further use aggravating the problem.

SandeepP · 23 Jun 2013

Diosoth said:

I got my replacement WD drive in- a half hour to install XP, then burned a disc to install the 5 needed Dell drivers.

After disassembling the old Samsung drive, it looks like one of the reader heads was damaged slightly, so this drive was no good. It's possible the platter itself was good but with that head apparently bent so slightly it wasn't reading. No idea why it worked fine when I got the PC but then it went bad, beyond further use aggravating the problem.

Hi Diosoth,

Its great to hear that after replacing the hard-drive system is working fine now. For downloading any additional drivers and softwares for this system you can also visit our support site:

http://dell.to/10PGcRq

Hope it helps.