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12 Posts
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66476
December 23rd, 2008 07:00
XPS M1530 hard drive problem (2000-0142 error)
Hello all,
My XPS was running fine up till a few days ago when I started getting some nasty system crashes. I could find no obvious software reason, so fearing the worst backed all my data up and planned to format and reinstall vista. My drive was encrypted with truecrypt so I left the drive decrypting over night and by the morning the system had crashed again. Another attempt to continue the decryption from windows caused another lock up, so I continued the process using the truecrypt recovery CD, which promptly reported "bad sectors" (it didn't say how many) and asked me if I wanted to skip them.
Having skipped the bad sectors the decryption process finished and the system boots ok. I've run the dell diagnostic utility and the hard drive check fails as soon as it starts are ports the following error:
2000-0142
HD self test unsuccessful
status: 79
Running through the error code wizard in the technical support section tells me to contact Dell Support, who I'm assuming are probably closed for Christmas. This laptop is only about 3 months old, so it's still in warranty. I'm interested to know what Dell will say when I contact them? Will they require the laptop to be sent back to them? Or the hard drive? Or will they tell me to run chkdsk and try to forget there are bad sectors on the drive? I can't carry on using a drive I can't trust.
All I know about the bad sector(s) is that there's at least 1 about 62% through my drive - what's the best way to find out how many there are and where they are?
Cheers,
Gareth
husky0894
1.6K Posts
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December 23rd, 2008 08:00
Contact support with the error message. Request a pre-imaged replacement drive. Yes, you will have to return the faulty drive, but hard drives are customer-replaceable - you will not need to return the entire system for repair.
hbdgaz
12 Posts
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December 23rd, 2008 10:00
Thanks for the reply, if it's the case they'll just need the drive back then I can boot linux off my external HD and at least get some use out of the system while I'm waiting.
A little additional info, the drive fails the read test (in the second set of diagnostic utilities) with the error code 0F00:0244 for three blocks and fails the verify test with error code 0F00:1A44 for the same three blocks.
foam123
3 Posts
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December 23rd, 2008 11:00
Did you ever get this resolved?
I have a new Studio1735 running VISTA SP1 32bit and in a little over one hour it went from being a good laptop to a doorstop
Dell Tech services was NO HELP!!!!!!!
I get the same error messages on test but mine calls it an "uncorrectable data error or media is write protected" in a series that is 23 sequence messages long. ("Disk_0-Block 395872720" to "... 395872743")
Mr._Pseudonym
2 Intern
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315 Posts
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December 23rd, 2008 12:00
:^/ I don't use TrueCrypt, and so don't know it's exact workings, but if its purpose is to encrypt the data on your hard drive, might that result in read errors when running other software that access the drive on a low level? Just a thought.
husky0894
1.6K Posts
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December 23rd, 2008 13:00
The problems being described are clearly failing hard drives - they are not software in origin. In both cases, the drive needs to be replaced.
hbdgaz
12 Posts
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December 23rd, 2008 15:00
Foam - No it's not resolved yet, I only emailed support a few hours ago and I don't expect I'll get a reply until after Christmas. Did you contact support and quote the error codes? How did they respond?
hbdgaz
12 Posts
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December 23rd, 2008 15:00
Mr._pseudonym - Thanks for the suggestion but essentially the drive encryption is irrelevant in this case - I mentioned it because the initial encryption or complete decryption of the drive involves going through every sector on the drive and reading it, encrypting or decrypting it, and then writing back to the disk. It's similar to what programmes like spinrite or chkdsk do, but not with the specific intention of finding disk errors. It was this process that first highlighted the errors on the disk.
If a truecrypt encrypted drive was read without the password or without the truecrypt bootloader the data on the disk would appear to be meaningless random noise, but it is still physically readable in exactly the same way unencrypted data would be at that level.
Mr._Pseudonym
2 Intern
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315 Posts
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December 23rd, 2008 17:00
:^/ Ah, thanks for that. I was considering that perhaps the file system itself was encrypted. In that event, if the process were interrupted as said, then one might expect that another utility would mark the encrypted sectors as corrupted, giving much the same symptoms as were described.
hbdgaz
12 Posts
0
January 3rd, 2009 16:00
A quick update for those that are interested - I got a reply from Dell on Boxing day in which they immediately agreed to replace the drive. After a short exchange of emails a new drive arrived by courier on the second of Jan. It's annoying the drive failed in the first place, but I really can't fault Dell's service.
LaSchmoo
1 Message
0
March 28th, 2010 21:00
I have the same problem on my Inspiron 1720. I'm going to buy a hard drive and replace it. Do i just run the restore disc when i get the new hard drive to put the operating system back on the new hard drive?
Thanks,
Steve
ejn63
11 Legend
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87.5K Posts
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321.3K Points
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March 29th, 2010 05:00
It isn't quite that simple.
Start here:
http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/document?journalid=82286FD61E68CB0BE040AC0A66E9453B&docid=361935&type=force&lx=179256&lv=339949&l7=362048
foam123
3 Posts
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March 29th, 2010 08:00
Sorry to hear that these problems continue. I had similar issue over 15 months ago but Dell did finally replace the drive. My wife works for a software company that also is a Dell vendor for their customers and her laptop hard drive has failed twice in the last three years. I guess the best advice for everybody out there is back-up, back-up, back-up and buy a spare hard drive because you will need it.