Compaq laptop hard drive failure
 

I have trouble with intermittent HDD failure that goes away after an hour or so.

I have a 8 month old Compaq Presario x1000 w/ a 40 GB HDD. (Similar to HP zt3000 and nx7000)

It's dual booted with WinXp & Debian GNU/Linux (lilo bootloader) - same problem existed previously with WinXP & RedHat 9 combination (grub bootloader)

Every week or two, it refuses to read from the hard drive upon starting. Successive restarts fail to remedy the situation. I can hear a noise that reminds me of a rubber banding snapping (not quite as loud) coming from the HDD.

I can boot Knoppix - no problems with RAM, or the video card appear, but it fails to autodetect the HDD, which cannot be manually mounted either.

After an hour or so of sitting without power, both Debian and WinXP can boot properly from the HDD and all is well until the problem strikes again.

I am 99% sure I have a bad HDD, but the reply from Compaq to my first email claims the issue is arising solely because of the dual boot configuration and that I should reinstall the original operating system (Of all the other reasons I could believe for this behavior, the operating system is not one of them).

So as a sanity check before I continue this discussion with Compaq, can anyone suggest any other causes than a bad hard drive?

"So as a sanity check before I continue this discussion with Compaq, can anyone suggest any other causes than a bad hard drive?"

I agree that this is probably a hard drive problem. If it is not then this could be a problem with the IDE controller chipset.

"I can boot Knoppix"

If your CD and hard drive are on the same IDE controller but different cables (and if your laptop is reasonably easy to take apart) you might switch the two cables and then try booting both the hard drive and Knoppix. If this appears to get further than the original configuration then you might reconfigure grub or lilo to the new cable configuration and try it again.

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Steve Stites

jailbait,

I agree that certainly sounds like a hardware failure/problem.

As a typical OEM Compaq are just wasting your time with feeble remedies, I get the same nonsense from Dell @ work.

Firstly, get a backup of your Linux/windows setups, then try the Compaq Diagnostics from the supplied CD, if you've lost it; no worries.....

Identify the brand & model of hard drive then grab the hard drive diagnostics program from the HD manufacturers website, (not Compaq’s), create a bootable floppy disk with those diags and run it.

If it doesn't fail after a couple of runs with the diags, I'd log another support call with Compaq to escalate the problem. If it does fail, they should ship you another hard drive under the warranty.

Regards
LG

Depending on what kind of HD you have in it, it probably is. I went through 2 on my Compaq 722 US, both of them were Hitachi I believe. The second one crashed the head to the disk the 4th day after I got it. Only after calling back for the third one did I demand to speak to a supervisor, and got the line that Compaq has had alot of problems with that particular series HD in these notebooks. They sent me a Toshiba HD, and its worked fine. Dealing with Compaq, especially here lately has been a royal pain, especially since they refuse to fix my laptop, and about 300,000 others that have a fault on the mother board that causes them to freeze when upgraded to anything over 256 Mb of memory. Pretty crappy eh? I told them it happened in Windoze ever hour, and the tech's solution was "run Linux instead":rolleyes:

My first email to tech support (as detailed above - its obviously a hardware problem) got a response claiming that the dual boot configuration was causing the problem and that a complete system restore back to WinXp Home would solve the problem.

Stupid hard drive failed when I was attempting to take a final exam on my laptop - I went to the registrar and they gave me extra time and set me up in another room so as not to disturb the other exam takers. No harm no foul, right? Wrong, after I left the professor decided the exam was too long and gave everyone and extra 30 min to work on it. Except no one remembered to come tell me, and I never got the extra time. :mad:

As soon as finals end I will call Compaq to straighten this out once and for all.

Good luck on that kiddo. Ive been going round and round with them on this memory problem, as well as getting a new thermal stack on my processor, since this one obviously isnt seated right. Sitting at idle, the fans run like crazy, and I could fry eggs on the bottom of this. Then there is the whole motherboard issue, and the IT forums at HP are laden with people complaining, yet Compaq/HP chooses to do nothing. Doesnt matter much, since Ive got an IBM Thinkpad T40 coming soon:D

If I decide to keep this one, since my warranty is up in June of this year, might as well take it apart and fix it myself. God knows I cant get Compaq to do it, even after 5 trips back to their "Repair Center":rolleyes:

Have you considered getting a rider on your homeowners/renters insurance policy to cover your laptop?

That's my backup if I cannot get satisfaction from Compaq. I pay an extra $25 a year and all the computer equipment I own is protected against theft, breakdown, and even accidental damage. Only drawback is the $50 deductible, but I think it worth it especially with the possibility of laptop theft or dropping the thing and cracking the screen.

Hmmm, never thought about that. Ill keep it in mind though. At this point, Im just looking forward to getting that T40. Those things are sweet. :D