M15x boot up problem

Question

I bought an M15x in 2010, and recently I've been seeing some bad sectors on the hard drive that came with it. Chkdsk was able to prolong the life a little, but today, it finally died. I had purchased a Crucial 480GB SSD in the anticipation of this, and I'm having some issues with getting my Win7 disk to install the OS to the new drive. The first question I have is 'Is the alienware Win7 DVD bootable?'  If not, the rest of the post probably isn't so important.  Alienware tech support told me it was on the phone, but since my purchase was 4+ years ago, I'm not sure that the support person knows for sure.  If it helps, the following is printed on the cover of the DVD: 'Alienware Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit''This DVD is not for reinstallation of programs or drivers.''The software included on this recovery DVD-ROM was preinstalled on your hard drive at the factory, and may only be used for backup and recovery of your Alienware computer system.''P/N DRGYF' If the DVD is bootable, then I'm unsure of the issue - With the factory drive installed, I can't see the 'windows starting' splash screen. It'll boot past the 'alienware head' bios screen, and then just sit there with a bright, blank screen for a while, and not do anything. I can hear the hard drive basically spin down and stop working. I know the drive is still recognized, as if I go into the BIOS setup, I can see it listed. If I enter the diagnostics menu, I'll get a 'Error Code 2000-0146', which I gather is a note that the hard drive has some bad sectors.When I put the new drive (a Crucial M500) in, I also put my Win7 bootable (I think, anyway) DVD in, and when powering up, I get an error that says PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, Check Cable, and then 'OS not found.' It'll just sit there. If I hit a key on the keyboard, it'll wait a few second, and display the same text again. I know the DVD is ok, as other computers can read it. The new hard drive is also listed in the BIOS, so it seems to be seated correctly (though I have tried to reseat it a couple times).  From what I've read, this error will occur if the laptop attempts to boot from a network, and isn't configured for it.  This is what makes me think that maybe the DVD isn't bootable, as a boot from a network happens after it tries the DVD drive.I've also gone back to my factory hard drive just to be sure I don't get the same PXE error, and I don't. I'm kinda at a loss here.A couple other odd bits of info -1) with the new hard drive installed, when I run diagnostics from the boot menu, it'll get to the 'do you see color bars (y/n)? And if I hit y, the test just stops, and I have to restart the computer.2) With the old drive in, if I hit delete when the bios screen flashes, it'll take me to a screen that lets me pick Win7 or the windows memory tool. That seems to suggest that the hard drive is at least minimally readable.Is this a motherboard issue? I'd hate to have to install that myself in a laptop, but any help would be appreciate.Thanks,joe

flettz · Accepted Answer

So I think the DVD is either bad or not bootable. I tried using it on a computer that I know has a good DVD drive, and the DVD won't boot on that PC either. Just to be clear, this is the DVD I'm referring to:

The DVD reads just fine when I'm actually in Windows. It just doesn't seem to want to boot. I'm going to either try finding a known good bootable DVD to see if my laptop will recognize that, or create a bootable USB drive.

flettz · Accepted Answer

So I figured this out. For whatever reason, my laptop would not boot from anything other than the hard drive, regardless of what I selected after hitting f12 or how i ordered things in the bios. I tried the DVD drive, a bootable USB stick, a DVD drive connected to the USB port, and nothing took.

I ended up creating a partition on my new hard drive, copying the files from my win7 disc onto that partition, and then installing win7 from that partition to the remainder of the hard drive. The weird thing is that from everything I can tell, my DVD drive is fine, once I get into Windows. It appears fine, and I can read data from it with no problem.

Tesla1856 · Answer

Yes, the Windows DVD is bootable.

Press F12 (one time boot) and force optical DVD.

PXE is network boot (because it found nothing else ... SSD is blank).

Check BIOS options. I would set it to AHCI if possible.

flettz · Answer

Thanks.  I have tried hitting f12 and forcing an optical boot, but I still end up getting the pxe error.  And ahci is selected in bios.

Tesla1856 · Answer

Run Dell Diags (outside of Windows) to test your hardware. DVD drive might be bad. Search on Google on how to convert a DVD to bootable USB Flash drive. Boot that instead.

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