Computer Problem (clicking noise)

[Snypa]

Hey guys, my 1 & 1/2 year old Dell XPS crapped out on me yesterday, before I call Dell, I know there's a couple people on here that might be able to disagnose this problem, so I can get it repaired quickly at this local comp repair shop. When I start up the computer, it loads the BIOs, with the white text & black background, but instead of going into Windows XP Pro, it stays in MS-DOS mode (black screen background) and gives me this Hard-drive error note, and every 15 seconds I can hear this fairly loud "clicking" noise coming out the computer, wtf is that ? lol, now my question to any experts out there is, is that noise coming from the hard-drive malfunctioning ? like what the error note is telling me, or can it be coming from another comp part that might be burnt out ?

 

[YAWN]

first can u start in safe mode?

What is the exact hard drive error? Could be just the pointer misconfigured or an actual hardware error?

As for the clicking frig that could be a few things, could be the fan could be the HD did u do any wiring in there? When did u notice it start?

Also if u have the windows disk, config the system to boot off the cd and run a repair that sometimes works to the correct the boot problem.

Did u remove the HD and wired it back as the slave and .: boot error?

need more data please.

 

[Bigfisherman]

Hate to say this but your hard drive is most likely toast. If they say they can't get your data & u really need it let me know I use to be good at disaster recovery 12 years ago and still have some tricks that would work.

 

[YAWN]

Bigfisherman u can't say that with any certainty from what was posted!

 

[Bigfisherman]

Bigfisherman u can't say that with any certainty from what was posted!

Wanna bet? HDs use to be my specialty I use to tell from the hard drive noise if it was deleting, reading or writing.....

fairly loud "clicking" noise= bad heads...

But of course I hope I'm wrong Snypa.....

 

[YAWN]

Explain to me how a clicking sound automatically tells u its the HD? I wanna hear this one please.

Boot problem can be 10 different things so there is no telling what that is based on this post!

As for a clicking sound common bud please your guessing, a good logical guess but never the less a guess. very well could be a kaput HD but a few other things to check before I simple toss it!

"and big fisher I aint being an ass or rude just logical argument, though I should say that as I come across rather harsh sometimes"

 

[Bigfisherman]

fairly loud "clicking" noise= bad heads

Pc is also giving him a HD error so noise + error = most likely drive.

Thats why my confident opinion thinks its the drive, but I could be wrong....

 

[Snypa]

first can u start in safe mode?

What is the exact hard drive error? Could be just the pointer misconfigured or an actual hardware error?

As for the clicking frig that could be a few things, could be the fan could be the HD did u do any wiring in there? When did u notice it start?

Also if u have the windows disk, config the system to boot off the cd and run a repair that sometimes works to the correct the boot problem.

Did u remove the HD and wired it back as the slave and .: boot error?

need more data please.

Sounds like its probably is the HD, everytime I start it up it always makes that clicking, I'll be heading home (at my buddies workshop) in a bit to check to post the exact error msg. As for doing any mods or opening the comp up, never attempted that as I'm not a computer expert. I think I'll give Dell a call tommorow and see if they can do anything before I get repaired locally. When it happened I tried reinstalling windows XP again, and the HD drivers, it still wouldn't load oddly, that's when I realized it might be an internal problem.

 

[Snypa]

"Error auto-sensing secondary master hard drive disk"
"strike F1 key to continue,F2 for running setup utility"

thanks for the help guys!

 

[YAWN]

Synpa go into the bios and make sure it's manually set as the boot drive. Sound like it's set to auto right now maually config it to the HD as boot device 1.

If the bios is reset it can get outta wack and the boot sequence is set back to default which may not point to the correct HD.

Make sure the correct hard drive is set as the boot drive in bios then try again and what happened when u hit f1?

 

[Snypa]

Synpa go into the bios and make sure it's manually set as the boot drive. Sound like it's set to auto right now maually config it to the HD as boot device 1.

If the bios is reset it can get outta wack and the boot sequence is set back to default which may not point to the correct HD.

Make sure the correct hard drive is set as the boot drive in bios then try again and what happened when u hit f1?

It seems as if it was already set to the proper HD, but because its not working, I'm still getting that error msg. I'll give delll a call in a little bit and see what they say. Tried what you suggested, went into the bios, boot sequence area, changed the boot sequence of the drives, tried booting it a few times, it still wont start up, and displays the original error msg. In the boot sequence area it displays:

1, Onboard or SATA hard drive (not present)
2, Onboard or IDE Hard Drive (not present)
3, Onboard or USB CD-ROM drive
4, Onboard or USB floppy drive (not present)

Although, upon reboot, it started reading the CD-ROM drive and went into the MS-DOS command prompt for my "D drive" CD-ROM drive.

 

[YAWN]

Try one more thing if u will please. far out low prob of success but unless u try u just never know.

Is your CD is on the same cable as HD? Could be the cable kaput and .: not detecting the HD.

Un plug everything but the master HD eliminate all the other problems and work on the HD problem.

It detected the CD rom so use that wire for the HD and try again u know that one is working.

Just another thing to check and then we keep going down the list till we find it!

Never give up never surrender and always go down tryin!

 

[Bigfisherman]

Snypa any luck? I can offer my services for free if you want to drop the PC off I'm bored working from home

Yawn, want a copy of this bootable CD(list of warez below) to diagnose mainly HD issues?

Acronis Bootable Program

* acronis disk director suite 9.0
* acronis disk editor 6.0
* acronis drive cleanser 6.0
* acronis partition expert 2003
* acronis recovery expert deluxe 1.0
* acronis migrate easy 7.0
* acronis os selector 8.0
* acronis true image 8.0
* acronis true image server 8.0

Hard Disk Diagnostics Tools

* Data Lifeguard Tools v5.03
* Fujitsu Hard Drive Diagnostic Disk
* IBM/Hitachi Drive Diagnostic Disk
* MAXTOR/Quantum Hard Drive
* Diagnostic and Setup Disk
* MAXTOR/Quantum Hard Drive
* Diagnostic and Setup Disk
* Samsung Hard Drive Diagnostics Disk
* Samsung Hard Drive Diagnostics Disk
* Seagate Hard Drive Diagnostics Disk
* Western Digital Hard Drive Diagnostic Disks

HDD Diagnostics & Repair Tools

* Data Advisor v5
* Data Lifeguard Tools v11
* DiskSpy
* Hard Drive Mechanic v3.0
* Hard Drive Mechanic Gold for Win9x file systems
* Hard Drive Mechanic Gold for WinNT file systems
* Hard Drive Mechanic Gold for Win2K and XP file systems
* HDD Regenerator v1.41
* HDD S.M.A.R.T. Viewer
* IBM/Hitachi Drive Fitness Test
* IBM/Hitachi Feature Tool
* IDE/ATA Drive Diagnostics
* IDESCAN 2.00
* Media Test v2.53
* Ontrack Disk Manager v9.50
* Ontrack Disk Manager v9.57
* Seagate SeaTools Desktop Edition
* SpinRite 5

Hard Disk Partitioning Tools

* Active@ Partition Recovery
* Paragon Partition Manager 5.5
* Partition Commander v8.01
* Partition Resizer
* PartitionStar
* Partition Magic 8
* PowerQuest's Partition Table Editor
* Ranish Partition Manager v2.44
* Smart FDisk
* SPFDisk
* TestDisk v5.1
* XFDisk

HDD Cloning & Backup Tools

* DriveStar
* Ghost for Unix
* Miray HDClone v1.0
* Norton Ghost v7.5
* Norton Ghost v8
* Paragon Partition Manager 5.5
* Partition Commander v8.01
* Partition Saving
* PC INSPECTOR's Clone Maxx
* Power Quest Drive Image 2002
* XCLONE

Hard Disk Boot Managers Tools

* BootMagic 8 BootDisk
* BootStar
* Gujin
* NTBoot
* Smart FDisk
* SPFDisk


Hard Disk Erasers

* Autoclave v0.3
* Darik's Boot and Nuke
* DriveScrubber
* KillDisk v1.1 Professional
* KillDisk v2.0 Professional
* KillDisk v3.0 Professional
* Ontrack Data Eraser v2.00
* Paragon Disk Wiper
* PC INSPECTOR's e-maxx

Windows Tools, Rescue&Recovery disks

* Active@ Partition Recovery
* Dos Navigator Plus
* Disk Commander v1.1
* Disk Commander v1.1
* Easy Recovery
* ERD Commander 2003 ERD C
* Network Services
* NTBoot
* NTFS Emergency Boot Disk
* NTFSCHK
* NTFSDOS Pro v3.12
* NTFSDOS Pro v4.00
* NTFSDOS Pro v4.00
* Offline
* ReadNTFS
* Registrar
* TestDisk v5.1
* Ultimate Boot Disk
* Universal Boot Disk
* Universal Network/CD Boot Disk
* Volkov 4 and 5 plus QView
* Windows 98 Startup Disk
* Windows XP System setup disk

Linux Tools, Rescue Disks, Boot root

* BasicLinux
* BG-Rescue Linux
* BlueFlops
* HAL91
* RIP
* Tomsrtbt - Tom's Root Boot

System and Memory Diagnostics

* CheckIt Pro 7
* GoldMemory v5.07
* Memory Doctor (DocMem)
* Memtest86
* Microscope PC Diagnostics v11.04u
* Monitor Test
* PC Diagnostics '95
* PC-Check v5.02
* PC-Doctor Service Center 2000
* TuffTEST-Pro v3.53
* Windows Memory Diagnostic

System Information,Hardware Identifiers

* AIDA16
* ASTRA v4.13
* Microscope PC Diagnostics v11.04u
* MSD.EXE v3.01
* NSSI v0.57.4
* PC Config 9.33
* PCI Discover
* PCI Sniffer
* PnP BIOS
* Bios Tools
* CleanBoot
* KillCMOS
* Matthias Bockelkamp's BIOS utility
* Microscope PC Diagnostics v11

 

[YAWN]

Tx bigfisher but we have a ton of tools available here at work but the more the better. I'll pm u.

 

[MikeyMikey]

When you've said clicking...

I automatically suspected as a HDD problem as well. It's a sign of HDD about to die.

Better back up all the important files.

 

[disspatcher]

So Snypa you get the problem fixed?

 

[MikeyMikey]

So Snypa you get the problem fixed?

guess not

 

[Snypa]

Thanks for the help guys, it was the HD, had a friend fix it for me, Bigfisherman, I'll keep that in mind in future ! :lol:
Sry I didn't post sooner, this past 2 weeks were soo hectic... was busy last week planning this icefishing trip at the last moment, then a day after going icefishing I got this spring flu/cold, was basically bed ridden for a few days earlier this week, and at the sametime, was also trying to keep up with client orders and private msgs on here ;/ not fun lol.

 

[Bigfisherman]

Thanks for the help guys, it was the HD, had a friend fix it for me, Bigfisherman, I'll keep that in mind in future ! :lol:
Sry I didn't post sooner, this past 2 weeks were soo hectic... was busy last week planning this icefishing trip at the last moment, then a day after going icefishing I got this spring flu/cold, was basically bed ridden for a few days earlier this week, and at the sametime, was also trying to keep up with client orders and private msgs on here ;/ not fun lol.

Glad u got the problem resolved, I had the flu on monday too nasty stuff.