Dell Alien - Black screen

[rdx4me]

Okay...

Updated my Dell Alien to Windows 10 a while back. Was working fine and about 6 months ago I went to boot it up and get a black screen stating " A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to restart"


Upon restart, it keeps saying the exact same thing...

Tried using the two Disc that came with the laptop to try booting or re-installing the software but not having any luck with those either.

Also ran the ePSA Pre-boot System Assessment Diagnostics and it reported the following:

Error Code 2000-0151
Validation 109379
Msg: Hard Drive 0 - S/N WD-WXD1A63H2245, incorrect status = 3E
SMART Predictive Failure

Technical Support will need this information to diagnose the problem .

Has my HD totally crashed and I need to install a new one?

Thoughts?

[davey6]

that error code normally means the hard drive has failed and reported it to the smart chip on the hard drive.

two things you can try.
run scan disc from a windows 7 or xp disk do not use windows 10 disk.
how to do that, first off boot the laptop from the windows disk till you get the setup screen
click repair pc then click repair from command line

once that is loaded type in the following command and hit enter

chkdsk /r c:

what that will do is run checkdisk with the look for bad sector and recover any readable info into new
sectors on the hard drive along with the scandisk fix option all at the same time.
it can take a while to complete and if the drive is past it may well throw up a error.
but its worth a try.

the other thing you can try is the WD data lifeguard download it from here and burn it to a cdrom
start the laptop on it and run any tools on the drive.
http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en

if any of the above get that laptop booted don't shut the laptop down and please don't delay backup everything straight away because that error will come back very quick

if you can get your information back all good and well nothing lost but you will need to replace that hard drive no matter what happens
as its reported bad and its no longer worth trusting even if you can get it going long enough to get you data off.

when something like this happens I wish I lived close to some of the older members of the site because I know what to do and even if it all fails
I can normally run a data recovery program by my HD dock and get back most pictures and music that people really want because some pictures are held dear to peoples hearts
and unlike most IT techs I fully understand that and do everything I know to try and get them back.

[rdx4me]

Ran the scan off a Windows 7 disk and it couldn't complete due to hard drive issues....

Recommendations for a new hard drive? I know computers advance so quickly it's almost impossible to keep up...

that error code normally means the hard drive has failed and reported it to the smart chip on the hard drive.

two things you can try.
run scan disc from a windows 7 or xp disk do not use windows 10 disk.
how to do that, first off boot the laptop from the windows disk till you get the setup screen
click repair pc then click repair from command line

once that is loaded type in the following command and hit enter

chkdsk /r c:

what that will do is run checkdisk with the look for bad sector and recover any readable info into new
sectors on the hard drive along with the scandisk fix option all at the same time.
it can take a while to complete and if the drive is past it may well throw up a error.
but its worth a try.

the other thing you can try is the WD data lifeguard download it from here and burn it to a cdrom
start the laptop on it and run any tools on the drive.
http://support.wdc.com/downloads.aspx?lang=en

if any of the above get that laptop booted don't  shut the laptop down and please don't delay backup everything straight away because that  error will come back very quick

if you can get your information back all good and well nothing lost but you will need to replace that hard drive no matter what happens
as its reported bad and its no longer worth trusting even if you can get it going long enough to get you data off.

when something like this happens I wish I lived close to some of the older members of the site because I know what to do and even if it all fails
I can normally run a data recovery program by my HD dock and get back most pictures and music that people really want because some pictures are held dear to peoples hearts
and unlike most IT techs I fully understand that and do everything I know to try and get them back.

[davey6]

it would depend on what interface your HD has I would think its sata but its best to ask.

these days with laptops I don't go for spinning drives anymore if a HD fails as your one has I would say
upgrade to a SSD that way you get more battery life and it can take harder knocks then a normal HD

Good SSD makes are Samsung, scandisk, pny a 240GIG is what you need to look for and the faster
its read, write rates the better.

once I know what interface you have I will give you a list of ones to consider