Second HDD this year :(

sprocky · Post by **sprocky** » 08 Dec 2008, 19:26

I've got a Samsung X20. In May this year I needed to exchange the HDD as I had serious trouble ("Operating system not found" or "hall.dll damaged"). I installed a 60GB Fujitsu drive and after some months the same trouble started all over again. I then avoided to shut the laptop down using the Standby mode. Unfortunately sound stopped working and I HAD to restart the laptop resulting in "Operating system not found". After several tries I could reboot the laptop (as you can see now) but I doubt it will last long. Anybody else experienced things like this?

Note: In the times before the problems occured I already used Standby mode mainly. Perhaps someone may find this information useful.

Thanks in advance!

Firebird · Post by **Firebird** » 08 Dec 2008, 21:09

Jan,
I can only think of two experiences like this, but neither were on a laptop.
One is where the connector to the hard drive was not quite in or a bit loose. It results in an intermittent problem. The other is an impending HD failure. Two in one year would sound like a laptop problem to me.

The other thing that you could have is a boot sector virus, but I would doubt this because of the fact that its intermittent.

I would first check the cable connections to the HD, including the power one, if this looks OK I would contact either Samsung or the place you bought it from.

sprocky · Post by **sprocky** » 08 Dec 2008, 21:29

Steve,

thanks for taking your time to reply.

I already checked connectors. One interesting thing I noticed was when I disconnected the HDD from the laptop for several minutes: in about 90% of the cases the laptop was able to start from the drive. In the rest of the cases it needed a second (or more) try to recover. Sometimes only the use of the WIN XP CD repair tool helped to solve this situation. I am afraid that one of this happened:

a) In May 2007 my laptop "touched" the ground. Not really sure if this could be the cause as it worked fine for about a year.
b) Got this laptop from a colleague who installed a new HDD. Unfortunately this one broke as the connector was connected to the HDD by 180°. But still: the new HDD worked for about one year. Could this have damaged the controller in a way?
c) Usually I just switch the laptop into standby mode instead of completely off. I do not know if this could be the cause.
d) Overheating. I use this laptop to fly in FS. I noticed pretty high temperatures when flying. I remember exchanging the HDD on my wife's laptop after almost burning my fingers while touching the housing where the HDD was installed.
e) Virus? Hm, my scanner is up-to-date and never noticed any viruses.