[mkczac]

Hi, I have recently acquired a Clevo-based High-Performance Laptop, and have noticed some wierd problems that ultimately made me decide to re-install the OS, in hopes of fixing the problems.

When the Laptop was purchased, at very odd times, the Blue Screen of Death would appear, usually while installing something and once while playing a video game (assumably loading a map).

I've also noticed an unusually loudness when the harddrive spins (probably not of real importance, but made me wonder..)


I grabbed two copies of (legit) Windows XP Pro and Service Pack 2 Disks, and tried to format, and reinstall windows.

Changed Boot Order
Put disk in, and ran setup
First disk wouldn't copy some files, and would give me the Blue Screen of Death on a file called setup.dd or something.

The 2nd disk (the more original XP disk) would finish the copying of files, restart the computer, and once the GUI was active and telling me it was installing, would Blue Screen of Death me again.

It repeated every time, and even after 4 seperate attempts of re-installing.


This has me believing its a hardware problem, and possibly a harddrive problem.

My knowledge of computers is high, but even I'm not quite sure what to do, My initial thoughts are maybe the Harddrive is spinning wildly and the disk inside is messing up, or causing reverberations from within the laptop, and have profressed to other possible problems that I'm not sure of.


Does anyone have the expertise to help me out here? It would be GREATLY appreciated.

The specs are

3.4GHZ P4 (with HyperThreading)
2GHZ PC3200 Ram (I think)
80 GIG Toshiba Hard Drive
Matshita DVD-RW Drive

Anything else I can provide to you, I will.

Thank you very much for reading this, and your time.

Zac Fielder-
[email protected]

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It seems like your Harddrive is about to crash....

Try another one if possible to see if it is?

[ultimateslacker2]

It seems like your Harddrive is about to crash....

Try another one if possible to see if it is?

[mkczac]

Umm, I think I'd like to have a little more opinions, or more further understanding of what the problem is, before I dump more money into various "testing".


I thought it was a Hard Drive problem too...

Z-

[ultimateslacker2]

Yeah I'll wait for second-hand opinions.

By the way, how old is this hard-drive?

[mkczac]

well, we got the laptop from a guy off of ebay, and hte computer looks a couple of years old..

[BlutoniumBoy]

Working in a rather large Enterprise environment dealing with hundreds of ThinkPads, and seeing the BSoDs all day long... from the description of your error and the HDD making noise, I would be willing to bet that it's your HDD. However, it may be RAM as well. I would remove 1 stick at a time while trying to install the OS. If it fails with one stick, try the other and if it continues, I would look into replacing the HDD.

Do you catch the Blue Screens error code? It shoul be located in the left hand corner of the screen. Please post this error.

[Serrik]

This link provides a diagnostic software for hitachi drives that should also work on your toshiba.

It creates a bootable floppy.

So you can test your existing drive anyway without buying a new one.

http://www.hitachigs...ownload.htm#DFT

There is also a CD image to create a bootable CD if you do not have a floppy drive.

Edited by Serrik, 20 December 2006 - 02:29 PM.

[ultimateslacker2]

Hello, sorry for taking so long to get back to you.

Hmmm... Ebay

You gotta be very careful for whom or what you buy on Ebay.

But we can always try running a long chkdsk

Click Start
Click Run
Type "cmd" in the run box (no quotes please)
type "chkdsk /f /r"
It will say the drive is locked and will ask to scan on next reboot, type Y.

Than reboot. While booting into windows, it will scan and fix any problems.

-yield22

Note: here is mine if you wanna see a example

Edited by Yield22, 21 December 2006 - 06:02 PM.

[happyrock]

if chkdsk does not fix it then...

get memtest 86+ here ...this will test your memory...let it run for at least 2 hours...if you get any errors then the ram is bad and will have to be replaced...no errors after 2 hours...it will run until you press the escape key then its probably good and we can try other things..

http://www.memtest.org/


the how to is here...

http://www.short-med...eview.php?r=276

[mkczac]

I figured it out guys


I had to sit and really think what would cause my Install to not work.

I decided, that, The Install CD Files, weren't being copied onto the Hard Disk, because the sectors were bad.

I decided to give it a LONG HARD Format, and give it another shot.

The Install worked

Turns out, the quick re-formats weren't doing the job effectively, and after wiping the harddrive completely and throughly, install was a breeze.

Everything is running well on the machine now, infact I'm even posting the reply on it right now

I do believe the HardDrive is going to screw up again, but now I have ample time to save up and buy a new one for it.. It will do the job for now

Thank you for all your help guys, As always, you're a godsend!

Z

[ultimateslacker2]

Glad you got it solved