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slugger_2003
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2007
- Messages
- 365
All was going well and one night I switched off my laptop (dell inspiron 9400 with 200gb HD). I switched it on the next morning for xp to tell me it couldn't start, dieing on a blue screen and restarting itself then asking if I want to start in safe mode etc.
I then run vista (laptop is dual boot) and it says it needs to repair some files so I let it do it's thing. At this point everything seems fine and I'm ignoring the fact that xp has suddenly stopped working. I then try to start the laptop on vista later for it to tell me that a driver file needs to be installed although I made no changes except 5 updates for vista.
I then try xp again and this time it works but there's a kinda clicking noise coming from the laptop that I hadn't noticed before, kinda like on a desktop when a program is loading.
It makes the noise four times, then pauses briefly then the noise three times then it pauses and again the noise four times then it's as if the computer gets a kick up the ass and catches up on itself. It does the exact same thing every time, the same number of clicks for the same amount of time. The problem is, that when the laptop is making this noise the whole system practically hangs.
I'm assuming because both OS's broke that it's a problem with the hard drive and trying to reformat the hard drive won't actually help? The problem was much less of an issue, perhaps two clicks, on vista.
I've ran the memory diagnostics tool that came with the laptop and also completed a full system test via the software provided by Dell via the BIOS. I've also carried out a full-system virus scan on xp. All of these tests provided no evidence for any faults at all.
Any opinions?
Thanks
I then run vista (laptop is dual boot) and it says it needs to repair some files so I let it do it's thing. At this point everything seems fine and I'm ignoring the fact that xp has suddenly stopped working. I then try to start the laptop on vista later for it to tell me that a driver file needs to be installed although I made no changes except 5 updates for vista.
I then try xp again and this time it works but there's a kinda clicking noise coming from the laptop that I hadn't noticed before, kinda like on a desktop when a program is loading.
It makes the noise four times, then pauses briefly then the noise three times then it pauses and again the noise four times then it's as if the computer gets a kick up the ass and catches up on itself. It does the exact same thing every time, the same number of clicks for the same amount of time. The problem is, that when the laptop is making this noise the whole system practically hangs.
I'm assuming because both OS's broke that it's a problem with the hard drive and trying to reformat the hard drive won't actually help? The problem was much less of an issue, perhaps two clicks, on vista.
I've ran the memory diagnostics tool that came with the laptop and also completed a full system test via the software provided by Dell via the BIOS. I've also carried out a full-system virus scan on xp. All of these tests provided no evidence for any faults at all.
Any opinions?
Thanks
