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Laptop Hard Disk Problem + Moral Dilemma

A

Abhi

Diamond Member
History:

I bought a Dell Inspiron 8500 in November 2003 with a 2 yr warranty.

In july, the hard disk started giving errors ... and acting VERY VERY weirdly.

Sometimes it would get detected, otherwise not. It would give the "Primary Hard Disk Fail" message. Tried the hard disk in a IBM T41, same error.

Details in this thread Here

It then magically came to life... and started working... Only problem was, I get the BSOD in windows XP twice a DAY now. Unmountable_boot_volume. Chkdsk /r doesnt even check the disk.

A few reboots later, it works as if new.

I have tried deleting the partitions, secure erasing and then re partitioning. Done this almost 4 times in the last 1 month.

Dell refused to order my warranty due to a stupid policy they have (See Here)

I finally upgraded my warranty (200$).

Present Problem:

The BSOD's continue, but the hard disk is error free. Tried the surface scan and 0 errors?

Whats wrong with the HDD? The NTFS partition gets corrupted ever 2nd boot, and gets repaired automatically!!

A Dell CSR told me since the HDD passes all diagnostic tests, its fine and they wont replace it. What do i do? simply break the HDD (In a way that they dont find out i did) and demand a new one?
 
The problem probably isn't the hard drive if it is passing diagnostics. Could be the onboard controller, bad power supply or something else in the laptop causing problems. I wouldn't destroy my hard drive and illegally seek a replacement just to find out that the hard drive wasn't the part causing the problem in the first place.
 
I agree with you pariah... but the HDD gave "Primary HDD Fail" messages even on another laptop... So cudnt be anything else, could there?

It also gets refused to be detected by my Desktop PC's BIOS... (But XP detects it) ...
 
isn't there a SMART feature for seeing the drive health? error rates etc. ibm or whatever should have hd testing apps too on their site
 
It passes all the tests as of today, including the SMART tests....

However, a few days earlier, it refused to spin up... not being recognized by any computer (Tried 3 different comps)
 
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