Troubles fixing a laptop.

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

Long story short my sister gave me her old Dell Inspiron 1000 that just crapped out. If I can fix it I can have it.

It won't boot into anything, it will just sit on the windows logo or give me screen that says XXXXX file is corrupt. I dont remember the exact name. Safe mode, diagnostic, nothing will boot up. I figured it was the HDD and when I got home and took it out its a small tiny ass thing that I can't hook up to another desktop to get files off (important ones) and i can't test it. It is in the link below.

http://www.superwarehouse.com/Toshiba_MK3021GAS_30GB_Laptop_Hard_Drive/HDD2181/ps/229316

What can i do to reinstall, get it working AND keep the files i need off there? They are only pictures. I have the driver, Windows XP, and the software disks.

After i get all the files off i would just completely reformat with XP and reinstall everything. I would use the recovery console but i dont think it has one.

Click to read more...

 

[silvercookie 5,000+ posts]

i have 2 of those little hdd's

i think one is 5gb and the other is 3

 

[Skinny Jones 10+ year member]

dont fix it just buy a new one mayyne. if u can afford. skinny can. skinny rich. he ballin out of control look at my system mayyne. skinny stay stacking chips

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

i have 2 of those little hdd's
i think one is 5gb and the other is 3

Like that helps me. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif

Asshat. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

dont fix it just buy a new one mayyne. if u can afford. skinny can. skinny rich. he ballin out of control look at my system mayyne. skinny stay stacking chips

You=dumbass

Bump

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

stick the drive in an external enclosure

 

[lilmaniac2 5,000+ posts]

buy the 2.5 adapter cable

 

[grimreper912003 5,000+ posts]

maybe you could repair XP save ur files to a flash drive then reinstall XP. id say just do a fresh copy and redo ur files.

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

stick the drive in an external enclosure

I have one, but its for normal sized drives, and the power cable won't fit this one.

buy the 2.5 adapter cable

Have to drive an hour for that.

maybe you could repair XP save ur files to a flash drive then reinstall XP. id say just do a fresh copy and redo ur files.

So your saying to put in the XP disk, go through and hit repair old installation? I can't redo the files, since they are pictures, and very important ones at that.

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

just buy one, they are only about $10-15

just plug it in using usb, copy over the files, reinstall the drive, put the xp disk in the cd drive, change the bios to make cdrom your first boot device, repartition, format and install

i am gonna guess "NTLDR missing" error is the one you see when you startup, it is common

 

[lilmaniac2 5,000+ posts]

Only way your going to get it to work is with an adapter

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

just buy one, they are only about $10-15
just plug it in using usb, copy over the files, reinstall the drive, put the xp disk in the cd drive, change the bios to make cdrom your first boot device, repartition, format and install

i am gonna guess "NTLDR missing" error is the one you see when you startup, it is common

Only way your going to get it to work is with an adapter

Ill be looking for one.

Thanks for the help.

EDIT: What is the adaptor called?

 

[lilmaniac2 5,000+ posts]

3.5" to 2.5" harddrive cable/adapter? i really dont know never looked

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

Alright I don't mean to bring up an old thread but I just got my adapter in today (hong kong ftl) and I got all important files taken off of it.Now, here is the next set of problems.

1. The computer randomly shuts off when I'm in the middle of set up. I'm pretty sure it's the battery, but it has been plugged in the whole time.

2. Formatting freezes at 27%, then the computer shuts down.

I haven't tried my other XP CD, im currently using the one that came with it. Do you guys think it could be some sort of virus? Or maybe a hardware issue?

 

[snoopdan 5,000+ posts]

1. take the battery out and see if it runs fine while plugged in the wall.

2. Freezing up like that during install can be a number of things. Try a different xp cd though, thats a good start in seeing wtf the problem is.

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

Took the battery out, and it turned off faster and more frequent than it did before. Popped it back in, and it's working good now.

Put in my other CD, and it got to the blue windows screen where it copies the files, and then went to another blue screen that said there was an error. Now it won't even load to the windows screen, it says inspecting your computers hardware config and then sits.

 

[shortyg83 10+ year member]

reset bios

 

[Scoobydoo 5,000+ posts]

it could also be bad sectors on the hard drive and once the install gets to that point of the drive to copy the files it freezes. i would try running a chkdsk or some other error reporting utility on it

the shutting down thing sounds like it is overheating

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

reset bios

Care to elaborate?

 

[Atimm693 10+ year member]

Well guys, I finally got it running and am now posting from the laptop. Heres the story.

A couple weeks ago I brought this and a couple other computers to a computer shop here in town, two were laptops, one was a desktop. The desktop he fixed, and he said the other laptop (IBM) was shot, and this one needed a new mobo. I parted out the IBM and proceeded to have a look at this one. I swapped the hard drives from this one into the IBM and vice versa. It shut down at 27% while formatting, so I started picking it apart to get the CPU socket type for a new mobo. Once I got to the CPU heatsink, there was a nice thick carpet consisting of eight years of dust plugging up the fins. After i pulled that out, I noticed the thermal compound was dry and old. after cleaning up the heatsink and CPU I put on some Artic Silver and reassembled it.

During this process, I found the GPU heatsink was crooked. On further inspection, I noticed the bolt type thing that held the sink to the board was snapped off. A little super glue later and it was attached normally again. I'm guessing this or the CPU was overheating and throwing the computer into thermal protect, therefore shutting it down randomly.

After this I reformatted and installed XP with no issues, and I also threw in a stick of ram from the IBM bumping it up to 448 MB from 256. Running better than ever now, quiet and cool. I don't know what dell was thinking putting the cooling fan on the bottom of this computer, so it is almost always blocked by something.

 

[andrewmoore13 10+ year member]

Well guys, I finally got it running and am now posting from the laptop. Heres the story.
A couple weeks ago I brought this and a couple other computers to a computer shop here in town, two were laptops, one was a desktop. The desktop he fixed, and he said the other laptop (IBM) was shot, and this one needed a new mobo. I parted out the IBM and proceeded to have a look at this one. I swapped the hard drives from this one into the IBM and vice versa. It shut down at 27% while formatting, so I started picking it apart to get the CPU socket type for a new mobo. Once I got to the CPU heatsink, there was a nice thick carpet consisting of eight years of dust plugging up the fins. After i pulled that out, I noticed the thermal compound was dry and old. after cleaning up the heatsink and CPU I put on some Artic Silver and reassembled it.

During this process, I found the GPU heatsink was crooked. On further inspection, I noticed the bolt type thing that held the sink to the board was snapped off. A little super glue later and it was attached normally again. I'm guessing this or the CPU was overheating and throwing the computer into thermal protect, therefore shutting it down randomly.

After this I reformatted and installed XP with no issues, and I also threw in a stick of ram from the IBM bumping it up to 448 MB from 256. Running better than ever now, quiet and cool. I don't know what dell was thinking putting the cooling fan on the bottom of this computer, so it is almost always blocked by something.

dont all laptops have cooling fans on the bottoms? isn't it the only way they fit?