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vavictorian

5 Posts

27142

November 28th, 2006 16:00

Inspiron 8200. "Primary Hard Disk Drive 0 Failure" Replace Hard Drive?

Hi - thanks in advance for any help -

my 4 yr. old dell inspiron 8200 has been acting up for about a year with memory write/read failures at 1fff0020, ff10ff30, etc. on and on. then it would say "decreasing available memory" and then strike F1 to continue - and it would move on and boot up.

well after months of that it has now refused to boot up at all. and says "primary disk drive failure".

i want to just swap out the hard drive with a new one (luckily backed up and transferred everything to a maxtor external and our family desktop) so a clean start would be fine. i've tried to run the f12 diagnostics but i can't get it to register when i try to power up.

is there any chance i have a motherboard or fan problem - that a new hard drive won't solve?

my hard drive is this:1 4G167 HARD DRIVE, 40GB, I, 9.5MM, 5.4K, HIT-EUCL

do i need a similar 9.5mm and 5400 rpm unit? can i go faster and bigger - up to 120gb? which is a better model for longevity, performance and less heat?

thanks in advance!!!

also I've got this processor and memory and would like to upsize my RAM at the same time (after new hard drive i guess)
9W039 PROCESSOR, 80532, 1.8GHZ,512K, PENTIUM 4, MICRO FLIP CHIP PIN GRID ALIGNMENT
0K952 DUAL IN-LINE MEMORY MODULE, 256, 266, 32X64, 8K, 200

any recommendations on good compatible, cheap memory? I used geeks.com for my desktop and it worked well but the modules didn't fit that perfectly and i really had to jamb them in.
Thankyou!!!

ejn63

9 Legend

 • 

87.5K Posts

November 28th, 2006 20:00

First, you may have two problems. Try reseating the drive to see if it's then found.

If not, it will need replacement; any 2.5" 9.5 mm EIDE drive 120 G or smaller will work.

The other issue could be faulty RAM or a faulty memory socket. Reseat the RAM, and boot into the Dell diagnostics (on a blue and white CD that came with the system). Test the RAM and the hard drive.

If a memory module fails, move it to the other socket. If it fails there, replace it. If the failure occurs on only one socket, you'll need a new system board - even used, a couple hundred dollars +.

Good and cheap are exclusive terms with RAM - you want cheap, you get cheap. You want good, you pay for good.

crucial.com is the best source for quality RAM.

vavictorian

5 Posts

November 29th, 2006 01:00


@ejn63 wrote:
First, you may have two problems. Try reseating the drive to see if it's then found.

If not, it will need replacement; any 2.5" 9.5 mm EIDE drive 120 G or smaller will work.

The other issue could be faulty RAM or a faulty memory socket. Reseat the RAM, and boot into the Dell diagnostics (on a blue and white CD that came with the system). Test the RAM and the hard drive.

If a memory module fails, move it to the other socket. If it fails there, replace it. If the failure occurs on only one socket, you'll need a new system board - even used, a couple hundred dollars +.

Good and cheap are exclusive terms with RAM - you want cheap, you get cheap. You want good, you pay for good.

crucial.com is the best source for quality RAM.



thanks alot for the reply. just curious - what is the clue to the bad RAM possibility - is it the read/write failures?

thanks - I'll try your suggestions.

ejn63

9 Legend

 • 

87.5K Posts

November 29th, 2006 11:00

The error quoted below means bad RAM or a bad RAM socket.

""decreasing available memory" and then strike F1 to continue - and it would move on and boot up."

vavictorian

5 Posts

November 29th, 2006 19:00


@ejn63 wrote:
First, you may have two problems. Try reseating the drive to see if it's then found.

If not, it will need replacement; any 2.5" 9.5 mm EIDE drive 120 G or smaller will work.

The other issue could be faulty RAM or a faulty memory socket. Reseat the RAM, and boot into the Dell diagnostics (on a blue and white CD that came with the system). Test the RAM and the hard drive.

If a memory module fails, move it to the other socket. If it fails there, replace it. If the failure occurs on only one socket, you'll need a new system board - even used, a couple hundred dollars +.

Good and cheap are exclusive terms with RAM - you want cheap, you get cheap. You want good, you pay for good.

crucial.com is the best source for quality RAM.



A follow up...i was able to get the diagnostics to run and it indicated hard drive failure - even after reseating, etc. and it was a real short test - so it looks like new hard drive (and to review ultra ata-100 or ATA-6 will both work, yes)

As for the RAM issue - no mater which sodimm 256 i had in which slot it only counted up 256mb ram not 512. then when i put only one sodimm in - it would not turn on at all if it was in the A slot; it would only boot when there was a sodimm in the B slot - regardless of which one, and regardless of whether there was one in the A slot - it still only counted up to 256. so it looks like my A slot is bad.

question - if that's the case - and the max ram on my 8200 is 1.024GB - then can i just buy a 1gb ram sodimm and will it work - or does it want pairs. i guess it may not need pairs - after todays experiemnt - though without a funcioning hard drive - i don't know what full operation will be. i guess i'll do the hard drive first and then the ram.

thanks for reading and helping.

rickmktg

11.9K Posts

November 29th, 2006 20:00


@vavictorian wrote:

@ejn63 wrote:
First, you may have two problems. Try reseating the drive to see if it's then found.

If not, it will need replacement; any 2.5" 9.5 mm EIDE drive 120 G or smaller will work.

The other issue could be faulty RAM or a faulty memory socket. Reseat the RAM, and boot into the Dell diagnostics (on a blue and white CD that came with the system). Test the RAM and the hard drive.

If a memory module fails, move it to the other socket. If it fails there, replace it. If the failure occurs on only one socket, you'll need a new system board - even used, a couple hundred dollars +.

Good and cheap are exclusive terms with RAM - you want cheap, you get cheap. You want good, you pay for good.

crucial.com is the best source for quality RAM.



A follow up...i was able to get the diagnostics to run and it indicated hard drive failure - even after reseating, etc. and it was a real short test - so it looks like new hard drive (and to review ultra ata-100 or ATA-6 will both work, yes)

As for the RAM issue - no mater which sodimm 256 i had in which slot it only counted up 256mb ram not 512. then when i put only one sodimm in - it would not turn on at all if it was in the A slot; it would only boot when there was a sodimm in the B slot - regardless of which one, and regardless of whether there was one in the A slot - it still only counted up to 256. so it looks like my A slot is bad.

question - if that's the case - and the max ram on my 8200 is 1.024GB - then can i just buy a 1gb ram sodimm and will it work - or does it want pairs. i guess it may not need pairs - after todays experiemnt - though without a funcioning hard drive - i don't know what full operation will be. i guess i'll do the hard drive first and then the ram.

thanks for reading and helping.
 
The max ram for the 8200 is 2gb, not 1gb, so yes, a single 1gb stick will work.

vavictorian

5 Posts

November 29th, 2006 22:00

The max ram for the 8200 is 2gb, not 1gb, so yes, a single 1gb stick will work.




thanks for the help.

dell and crucial both indicate 1gb total, however. and crucial shows 512 per slot max. i'd like to try a single 1gb stick in my good slot, but am nervous about it not functioning - then having to send it back and eat 15%. do you have any links i can look at regarding the 2gb total or 1gb in one slot for the inspiron 8200?

do you recommend - as i solve this two part (hopefully not more) problem - that i do the hard drive first - and load windows, software, drivers, etc. and then see about upping the ram. or should i go ahead and do them together? i assume i can do my windows xp pro install, etc. with only 256mb of functioning ram.

thanks.

rickmktg

11.9K Posts

November 29th, 2006 22:00


vavictorian wrote:
The max ram for the 8200 is 2gb, not 1gb, so yes, a single 1gb stick will work.




thanks for the help.

dell and crucial both indicate 1gb total, however. and crucial shows 512 per slot max. i'd like to try a single 1gb stick in my good slot, but am nervous about it not functioning - then having to send it back and eat 15%. do you have any links i can look at regarding the 2gb total or 1gb in one slot for the inspiron 8200?

do you recommend - as i solve this two part (hopefully not more) problem - that i do the hard drive first - and load windows, software, drivers, etc. and then see about upping the ram. or should i go ahead and do them together? i assume i can do my windows xp pro install, etc. with only 256mb of functioning ram.

thanks.
Posted many times on these forums that two 1gb sticks works just fine... 
 
It's irrelevant whether you do them together or not, but I'd question how much money you're putting into a computer in that shape vs. buying a new one.

vavictorian

5 Posts

December 21st, 2006 12:00

Hi-

thanks again to all for the advice.

i bought a new 120 gb samsung hard drive and a new 1gb crucial memory stick from newegg.com (one of my memory slots was dead but the 1gb stick works great in the one functioning slot - the other i left empty since it doesn't recognize anything).- great prices - specs below. both worked great and i've got a 'new' 4 year old fast working dell inspiron 8200. Turns out the old hard drive was totally dead - and thanks to decent backing up and a second home desktop computer - i didn't lose anyting important. so with the new 120gb samsun i've got triple the storage, fast and cool hard drive operations - and since i had luckily saved my original discs i reloaded windows XP Pro and separate sp2 and everything has worked great so far. To all dell 8200 owners - do the upgrade - it works and you'll have a 'new laptop' for less than $200.

Hard drive:
SAMSUNG Spinpoint M Series HM120JC 120GB 5400 RPM 8MB Cache ATA-6 Notebook Hard Drive - OEM

Memory:
Crucial 1GB 200-Pin DDR SO-DIMM DDR 333 (PC 2700) Notebook Memory - OEM

i also added a belkin pcmcia usb 2.0 card and that is really screaming along with my maxtor external back up drive.

jdrou

29 Posts

December 26th, 2006 19:00

In many cases I would agree that putting money into such an old system would be a waste. In this case, a hard drive upgrade could easily be put in an external case later if the laptop is retired. And if the notebook still does everything you need it to do then the cost of a 1 GB SODIMM is not a bad buy. Especially when "upgrading" to a new model means downgrading in some areas (losing a drive bay and a PC Card slot).

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