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71954
No drive detected on a Latitude D820
3 1/2 year old D820 has been running fine until last night. I closed the lid to put it in sleep mode then went to bed without confirming it shut down. It staying running, there was a blue screen. I shut it down. On reboot I see normal bios screen then a message I've never seen before--"the device in the system modular bay cannot be identified..." I imagine it's referring to my dead laptop battery though I've never seen that message before.
Then I press ESC to ignore error and get this. "no bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F3 for setup utility, Press F5 to run onboard diagnoistics." In setup I can find a boot order but no place where bootable devices can be configured. When I run onboard diagnostics there are two error messages.
--start dst short test--
Test result: fail
error code : 1000-0141
Msg: No hard drive detected.
If I press Yes to continue testing another error appears.
-Optical device built-
Test results: Not Applicable
I know the sounds of this machine and I'm sure the hard drive motor is not turning the platters, there are no hard drive sounds. The DVD drive does not light and cannot be opened so it appears to be getting no power, similar to the HD. What that suggests to me is the hard drive may be okay but the hard drive controller is bad. I put a USB stick in on boot up and the machine detected that and tried to boot from it but it has no boot sector.
I ordered a notebook drive enclosure to test the HD on another computer. If it works then I know the problem is the drive controler or something closely related. In that event would the likely repair mean a new motherboard? Does anyone know offhand what that kind of repair might cost? If it's not too high I'd like to keep this machine running until Fall.
Thanks in advance for any assistance.
Charlie
dallascowboyswo
2.4K Posts
0
June 28th, 2009 22:00
You must reseat the drive to verify that it can not be detected. If you put in a known good hard drive and it fails then you will know that it is the controller and yes that would require a motherboard replacement. Check in BIOS to see if anything is detected. To enter the BIOS you have to click on f2 at boot.
charlieiii
4 Posts
0
July 1st, 2009 06:00
Thanks for the response. This story has a happy ending. Yesterday I tried one more time to see if the computer would boot and--it did! I can't think of anything that changed. The bios was not detecting the HD or DVD drives for several days and that somehow cleared up all by itself. I don't know how it came back to life but it did. Since yesterday the computer is functioning as normal. I perfected my backups and breathed a huge sigh of relief. (I worked in a little comptuter retail store back when the 286 processor was state of the art and we called that fix 'waving the dead chicken.')
I'm satisfied with this D820, I got my money's worth and would like to keep it in service until the next processor generation, windows 7 and hopefully USB 3 are available. My gripes are the limited audio card and the short battery service life. I prefer an analog volume control but can live with the push button system. The feel of the keyboard could be better but this keyboard gets the job done. The size and weight are fine and about the max I'm willing to live with. I need a machine with most of the power of a so-called desktop replacement but in a smaller case. The D820 gives me that. I require at least 1200x1600 pixels. The 1200x1920 screen could be a tad sharper but it's getting the job done too.
Now that this machine appears to be healty again I'm going to replace the 120 MB HD with a 500 MB unit. I'd like to copy a mirror of the current drive onto the new drive. Would anyone care to recommend a drive they've worked with and mirroring software?
speedstep
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
47K Posts
0
July 1st, 2009 06:00
Apricorn makes a universal upgrade kit with cloning software.
The EZ Upgrade Kit from Apricorn makes upgrading your PATA/IDE or SATA laptop hard drive as easy at 1-2-3. This kit includes all the hardware and software needed to painlessly transfer all the data from an old PATA/IDE or SATA laptop hard drive to a new hard drive in three easy steps. EZ Upgrade includes: Apricorn’s Upgrade Suite CD, a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 hard drive enclosure (USB 1.1 compatible) & USB cable. EZ Upgrade is all you will need to easily transfer everything - data, applications, documents, address books, e-mail, settings, OS, and preferences - from the old laptop hard drive to a new drive, in three easy steps. First, connect the hardware by sliding the new hard drive into the EZ Upgrade enclosure and connecting to the laptop’s USB port. Second, run EZ Gig II’s cloning option by booting to the CD. Lastly, install the new hard drive into the laptop. That’s it -you’re finished! Once the new drive is installed, the old drive can be used in EZ Upgrade’s Hi-Speed USB 2.0 enclosure for external storage. The EZ Upgrade enclosure connects to both SATA and PATA 9.5 mm 2.5-inch hard drives. Just use the appropriate connector on the enclosure tray, slide the tray into the enclosure and connect to your computer via the USB port. When used with EZ Gig II, the external drive becomes a state-of-the-art backup solution. The included EZ Gig II data transfer utility is comprised of two modules – Disk Clone and Image to clone or backup your data with minimal hassle. With easy install with plug-n-play capability, this EZ Upgrade laptop Hard Drive Upgrade Kit is ideal source for all your laptop storage needs.
Manufacturer Part# : EZ-UP-UNIVERSAL
Dell Part# : A0158183
500gig 7200RPM
Manufacturer Part# : U008N
Dell Part# : 341-9017
charlieiii
4 Posts
1
August 28th, 2009 12:00
I should make one more post on this thread, which I started, to say how things turned out. What resolved the boot problem was replacing the keyboard. It had a dead C key and then the shift key began stuttering, etc. When a fresh keyboard was installed the intermitant boot problems were resolved.
foggysail
7 Posts
0
November 15th, 2013 18:00
Sort of excited after reading Charlie's above post!!
My trusty D820 was a pleasure to use...........until last night when I accidently knocked my bottle of dry ginger ale.......WHICH WAS NOT DRY onto the keyboard. POOP HAPPENED QUICKLY! I pulled the battery and then the keyboard, washed it in warm water, blew it dry using a compressor and then repowered. The computer sort of came up but the keyboard really was outputting garbage.
Next step, removed keyboard again and soaked it with electronic contact cleaner from an aerosol can. Put it back and WALLA!!!! The computer no longer could see the hard drive so no boot. Gave the fault 000 0141 and indicated a short.. Went to my desktop and ordered a keyboard on EBay for $10-11, free shipping. In the mean time I took the entire computer apart, sprayed contact cleaner on the HD's connector along with other connectors and the mother board. Still no boot.
The replacement keyboard should arrive in a few days. I will report back with results, good or bad.