Booting Problems - Getting Worse

[quiksil903]

So this is a mystery to me.

I have a Dell Inspiron 8200 running Windoes XP. I brought my laptop with me on a trip and when I returned, the first time I booted up, I got this error:

Primary hard disk drive 0 failure
No boot device available -
No bootable devices-- strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utilit


When I press F1, instead of restarting, the "No bootable device available..." error displays again and again (with every push of F1). So I manually restart the computer and this typically boots the computer up properly, but the problem is recurring now, more frequently.

The worst part is that I'm seeing a bunch more errors in conjunction with this one. The battery charges extremely slowly (no matter what bay or plug I put either into) never fully charging, and there are increasing problems coming out of 'hibernation' mode. Today I got this error when I lifted the computer lid -
"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR

Technical information: *** STOP: 0x00000077 (0xC000000E, 0xC000000E, 0x00000000, 0x01565000)

Beginning drop of physical memory.
Phiysical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administrator or technical support group for further assistance."


Now, needless to say, I have never seen anything like these errors before; my computer has been relatively healthy for a year. I did not add any hardware or software prior to the error appearing. I can only imagine that it got jostled or something during a trans-Pacific flight.

Anyway, these errors have been happening fairly regularly now, and after contacting Dell and getting the usual non-answers, I decided to hit Anandtech, my evertything support group. Anything anyone can suggest would be a great help. Thanks for reading this far!

 

[loup garou]

Most likely the boot error you are getting is telling the truth; your HD is failing. Back your stuff up (if possible) and get a new drive.

 

[wjsulliv]

2 possible problems. One expensive, one cheap.

Expensive:
The drive is failing. Back it up and replace it soon.

Cheap:
Since you were traveling you somehow knocked the ide ribbon loose from the hard drive. Open up the laptop and make sure those connections are still snug.

 

[quiksil903]

Cheap:
Since you were traveling you somehow knocked the ide ribbon loose from the hard drive. Open up the laptop and make sure those connections are still snug.

Which connections? Where might I find out info on how the ribbon and the hard drive should look or how to go about fixing that? I feel very comfortable around desktops, but kind of wary around laptops.

 

[Hossenfeffer]

Originally posted by: quiksil903

Cheap:
Since you were traveling you somehow knocked the ide ribbon loose from the hard drive. Open up the laptop and make sure those connections are still snug.

Which connections? Where might I find out info on how the ribbon and the hard drive should look or how to go about fixing that? I feel very comfortable around desktops, but kind of wary around laptops.

Well, the cable attached to the hard drive and motherboard. It should have a snug connection. It's a wide IDE cable so it should be easy to recognize. (If you try to go that route, that is)

 

[Medea]

You might want to take a look at Microsoft's support page HERE.

 

[quiksil903]

Anyone have any experience with the above microsoft error?

 

[Abhi]

Try running a disk checking utility like scandisk, in thorough mode and conduct a disk surface check of the disk. If your are lucky this might solve the problem.

I had a similar problem with my Dell Latitude C510, but was solved with an overnight run of scandisk in thorough mode. Got a couple of bad sectors.... but the drive still works.