replacing hard drive in Studio 540 desktop

Hi Chinowa,

Here is your manual reinstallation procedure.

The ability to retrieve data depends on how "crashed" your drive crashed. The usual strategy is to put the old drive in an external drive enclosure.

chinowa

Osprey is correct but a enclosure is not required. a spare sata cable is all you would need but that all depends on what happened to the drive.

I have just about the same problem. The hard drive crashed in my Dell Studio 540 (bought in November 2008). I replaced it with another Seagate Barricuda. The computer recognized it. But I could not reinstall the operating system using my dell issued cd. It said Windows failed to start because a kernel is missing or corrupt. I'm assuming this means I will have to buy a new operating system(?).

Studio540

Are you sure it was your drive that crashed? Kernal errors are usually signs of other failures, start by checking your memory.

sedemdeh,

I was sure it was the hard drive because when I ran diagnostics (F12) it said no drive detected, error code 2000-0141. When I installed the new hard drive it was recognized during diagnostics and I no longer saw that error code. Then I tried to install what I assumed was the operating system from the dell issued cd. It seemed to install and then it had to restart for everything to take effect. When it restarted, I was encouraged to press any key to start from the cd, I did, which put me right back where I started. The next time I didn't press any key, and a message appeared saying that Windows failed to start because a kernel was missing or corrupt. I assumed it meant that either something was wrong with the dell issued cd, or that I couldn't use the dell issued cd on a non-dell issued hard drive. Could this be true? I also assumed since my service agreement has expired, that I'm kind of on my own. Does it look like I have to buy a whole new operating system, or is there another way?

Thanks sedemdeh, I'm starting on this right now.

LOL no you don't need to buy a new operating system.. It sounds like you installed a second time over what you had which may have led to your kernel missing problem.. Do this

start the install process again.

when you get the section that asks you where you would like to install, make sure you delete the partitions that are present

then create a new partition/ format it /then install again

Now this time when it reboots the first time don't press a key just let it do its thing.

you should be OK if you don't have any hardware issues..

Dell does not make hard drives, the disk will install to any drive so long as it has adequate space.

Assuming your running Vista you can check out www.windowsreinstall.com/.../index.htm

If you get stuck ask ?'s before you proceed.

Sedemdeh,

Everything is going smoothly. Thank you so much!