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3 Posts
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21795
April 12th, 2011 15:00
diskette drive 0 seek failure
hi all,
my dell inspiron 531s froze up while using it a few days ago and now the screen says diskette drive 0 seek failure, when i`m on the main bios page I try disabling the floppy A and then I get a black screen with a white cursor followed by "error loading operating system"
when I load default settings it returns to diskette drive 0 seek failure, I was told it may be my CMOS battery dying but my date and time are still correct.
when I start the system I hear one beep and everything sounds normal and I was told that the one beep means everything is normal although it surely is not lol
any help is greatly appreciated, I need this thing up and running asap and I live in the middle of nowhere so its not real easy to just drop it off and get it fixed.
Tom Green
322 Posts
0
April 12th, 2011 15:00
Hello bender468
First turn off floppy drive in bios. Now run DellUtility on your Hard Drive and check for errors.
Can you boot from a bootable CD? Can you run Safe Mode? What OS are you running?
Sounds like a HD problem.
Tom
bender468
3 Posts
0
April 12th, 2011 16:00
i`ve turned off the floppy drive and the problem persists I do not have a bootable cd and I cant run in safe mode, doesnt even give me the option on startup, sorry I forgot to mention it runs on vista.
Tom Green
322 Posts
0
April 12th, 2011 18:00
If you can get into bios, you should be able to press F12 boot menu and get
to the DellUtility and run Diagnostics on your HD. Give that a try.
Tom
bender468
3 Posts
0
April 13th, 2011 00:00
I didnt see a diagnostics tab just test options, when i ran the test all the SATA drive tests failed or timed out.
Tom Green
322 Posts
0
April 13th, 2011 07:00
You will need to replace your Hard Drive and reinstall your OS.
Tom
sbbt1
1 Message
0
October 21st, 2011 21:00
Hello,
I have done everything you guys have requested to resolve the same problem I have it my Inspiron Desktop 530S. I even changed the Hard drive, yet nothing seems to be working. Are there any other tricks of the trade I can try to make this problem go away. Oh, I also changed my CMOS battery.
Please help!
Southy34
2 Posts
0
October 22nd, 2011 06:00
I seem to be having a similar problem with my Inspiron 530 desktop this past 10 days. I have been receiving a "hard disk drive failure" on bootup. I am able to boot from CD-ROM and when I do, I am able to see the files on the hard drive and use the drive.
I have now purchased a replacement hard drive. On bootup, I receive the same "hard disk drive failure" (I expected a message recognizing the drive and telling me to format it). I restored an Acronis disk image to the new drive. Again, I receive the same message.
Despite the message I'm receiving, does my problem lie somewhere other than the hard drive?