System Freeze on Startup. Diagnostics Error Code 0F00:136C

Welcome to the forums :emotion-21:

Have a read of this thread for advice from Dell's Brad L on the same subject/error message :emotion-55:

It would appear it's likely to be either a MBR problem (Master Boot Record), or a failing hard drive?

It's possible the MBR can be fixed, but if the hard drive has failed/is failing, it'll obviously require replacing :emotion-6:

To try and get any important data/files off it, the faulty drive will require installing as a slave drive in another system, or in an external enclosure.

I suspect not - simply because of the OS you're using, but is the system still under warranty?

If it is, Dell will send you a replacement hard drive.  If it's not, you'll have to cough up for a new drive yourself I'm afraid.

Thanks you for your advice.

So, do you think the problem is definitely the hard drive, or is there some sort of fix i can perform?  Should the hard drive been showing signs of failure, because the computer only froze randomly without warning.  The only sign I had was a loud humming coming from the inside of the machine.

Thank you in advance.

So, do you think the problem is definitely the hard drive, or is there some sort of fix i can perform?  Should the hard drive been showing signs of failure, because the computer only froze randomly without warning.  The only sign I had was a loud humming coming from the inside of the machine.

Hello kieranm2, I would attempt to perform a hard drive test if possible, before I assumed the hard drive has failed.

From your description, it appears as though you may have an OS corruption.

I would try to perform a repair OS installation and see if that was successful, if you cannot perform a hard drive test.

You can download the diagnostic utility from the hard drive manufacturer, burn it to a CD and boot to it, if you cannot run the test using the Dell Hardware Test Utility on your Dell system.

The loud humming may be a defective fan or the system may need a good cleaning that is causing an overheating condition.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your advice.

I ran the "Hardware Diagnostics" test that appeared as an option on startup because I could not figure out how to run the diagnostic off of a cd.  The test indicated next to the name of my hard drive "- Pass".  Does that mean that it passed the test, or that it was bypassed?  Also, is one possibility that my disc drives are the problem, because in the utility partition the error code I mentioned previously indicated an error in my optical drive.  Unless that means my hard drive; I thought it meant disc drives.

Update:

Okay, after I suspected the disc drives to be the problem, I went to the Utility Partition and ran tests for both my hard drive and disc drives.  The hard drive passed all tests, while my CD-RW drive passed the device test, could not read any media, and failed the built-in self test.  My DVD-RW drive passed the device test, failed the read test(probably due to the disc, because a message appeared saying there was an error in the medium), and passed the built-in self test.

Error code 0F00:2874 appeared for the CD-RW drive with "Msg: BIST - Spindle Test failed"

Error code 0F00:021B appeared for the DVD+RW/DVD-RW drive with "Flaw in the medium or an error in the recorded data.  If this is a removable device, try different media".

I think error code 0F00:021B is due to the disc I put in, but error code 0F00:2874 sounds like a problem with the drive.  Has anyone ever heard of a faulty disc drive causing a system to freeze on startup?

Thank you in advance.