Netbook Nightmare

[Proculeius]

Well I better play out the whole story to you here, so you have a good understanding of what the problem could be.

Had a client contact me with the story that one day his '
Toshiba NB500 Netbook' just turned off during use and when he rebooted, got the notorious error message;

"A disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"

First visit was to determine whether the hard drive was at fault, after initially performing other troubleshooting steps (reset BIOS defaults, format disc etc etc) I ran a chkdsk from the command line, it kept coming back with 'skipped part number 3450 and then so on so forth, 3451 etc etc.

From that information is was quite clear that the hard drive had left us, so I told the client that his best option would be to sent it back to the manufacturer (as it is a netbook) and see what they say.

The client then decides to try to save himself the $$ and add in another harddrive from a laptop which was working on the screen had been destroyed. So I pay him a second visit.

Went in with the assumption that it could be a simple format/install of windows, that was 2 hours ago whilst I'm still trying to get anything to load. Got 40% through a Windows install, got an error message saying 'cannot location installation sources' etc.

Then I tried running a chkdsk (using hirens boot cd) only from the wizard and had 'auto fix' and 'search for bad sectors' check boxes checked, got to phase 4 with long waits on each phase, (was at 2.8 hours working at this stage) waited for 30 mins on the 4th phase and knew it had to be a disc error, right?

I then ran the toshiba recovery console for a second time, it made it a lot further after the chkdsk attempt (82%) but then stopped and stalled. Should I have let the chkdsk run?? It always seemed as if it was working, but at a painfully slow pace. (I left the client at that stage and put it down to a possible fault in the mobo or hard drive).

Any idea anyone? All feedback/opinions are appreciated!


Thanks for reading.

 

[wimwauters]

Test the original hard disk in a bench system and bear in mind sometimes there's more than 1 damaged part in a system. This is not a motherboard with a dodgy SATA controller/chip/transistor, is it?

 

[iisjman07]

Chkdsk is used primarily for repairing file systems, not hard drive diagnostics. Get some hard drive diagnostics software that'll let you check SMART data and perform surface tests to find bad sectors

 

[Trenatos]

It says "installation source", think about that for a second.
Make sure your installation disc(s) are in good shape, then run the standard HDD diagnostics, then run diagnostics on RAM just to be thorough.

Let us know how those things work out.

 

[14049752]

It says "installation source", think about that for a second.
Make sure your installation disc(s) are in good shape, then run the standard HDD diagnostics, then run diagnostics on RAM just to be thorough.

Let us know how those things work out.

It has nothing to do with the disc or the hardware. This happens on several netbooks, because of lack of (or incorrect) driver support on the XP disc. Basically, it gets far enough that it can get to the GUI part of the windows install, but at that point the CD/DVD drive is no longer detected. The fix is to either use discs built for the system, or slipstream the correct drivers in.

 

[Proculeius]

Test the original hard disk in a bench system

I don't have dedicated 'bench system' to pull apart per say, I'd need to use my lenovo thinkpad or my old acer, swap out the hard drives and run hdd diagnostics.

bear in mind sometimes there's more than 1 damaged part in a system.

How could I go about breaking down the parts and narrowing down what the problem component could be?

This is not a motherboard with a dodgy SATA controller/chip/transistor, is it?

Again, what tools/methods could I try to possibky identify that this is the trouble?

 

[Proculeius]

Get some hard drive diagnostics software that'll let you check SMART data and perform surface tests to find bad sectors

Diagnostics software recommendations/locations?

 

[Proculeius]

It says "installation source", think about that for a second.
Make sure your installation disc(s) are in good shape, then run the standard HDD diagnostics,

I was running the installation off a USB drive and had tested/install windows on another machine before, so it's not at fault.

then run diagnostics on RAM just to be thorough.

Let us know how those things work out.

Will run RAM diagnostics and get back to this thread.

 

[Proculeius]

The fix is to either use discs built for the system, or slipstream the correct drivers in.

Used a USB drive to install 'Windows7', no dics with the machine (cheap netbook), tried using the recovery console (which is basically the same thing, which crashes 3/4 way through).

Which leads me to think its a hdd or controller issue, as for the drivers, I could download them/try to load them in during the Windows setup, but I don't think that would resolve anything.

 

[Knightsman]

Here is the diagnostic software for each manufacturer.

The best thing right now is for you to go buy an external Driver to read cds/dvds, just for this reason.

If the hard drive passes, then test the memory, then if that passes, its most likely a bad board.

 

[Proculeius]

Here is the diagnostic software for each manufacturer.

The best thing right now is for you to go buy an external Driver to read cds/dvds, just for this reason.

You mean a portable USB cd drive? I have a CD ROM one, could do with DVD drive though.

If the hard drive passes, then test the memory, then if that passes, its most likely a bad board.

Will try and report back.

 

[Proculeius]

Update;

-Had check disc running for 8+ hours (how long it took), with both 'auto fix file' and 'scan/recovery bad sectors' options selected. Only to come back and find it unresponsive (mid phase 4) all that time later.

-Ran MemTest86 on RAM, passed

-So I did an 'auto fix file system' on its own, it did it fine. Tried using the recovery console again, failed at 82% once again. Downloaded the hard disk drivers for the machine, only it's an .exe file, when I tried to load it in via the windows setup screen, it wasn't displayed. (not 100% on how to load drivers in anyway)

The hdd is different to the original anyway. Could this be an issue, compatibility with a different hard drive? (as it is a netbook)

-SMART wasnt working on this disk either

Tried formatting the disc via windows, to remove any possible data that was sitting on there that may be causing the bad sectors. That only seemed to make it worse as now it cannot even be formatted 'Format Error occurred at offset 162,004,994' etc etc using 'Hard Disk Low Level Format Tool 2.36'

-Ran 'HD Tune 2.55 - Hard Disk Utility' error scan (full) and it comes up with 'damaged' blocks from the initial read now.

Hard disk is fried? Reason why I pushed this so much was because it was working on another Toshiba laptop. Now it's well done I think.

Any other questions/suggestions for me? I'm happy to give them a shot.

 

[Proculeius]

Test the original hard disk in a bench system

Done, SMART picked it up as a disk about to fail.

Feel free to delete this one guys, was a little unlucky, the original disk failed, and then the one taken out
of a damaged laptop (but still working at the time) failed as well.