Unfair Client

[Hercomputers]

What in your oppinion is the best way to diagnose a hard drive and if a drive is consdidered unhealthy or faulty is there a way it can be repaired via software?

I thought you were done but I guess not....software that repairs bad hard drives?.......ahhh, not that I know of. Maybe someone else does--

Now, diagnosing the drive is a different story and you're throwing me with this post....again....it seems that your diagnositic and repair steps are not complete and/or thorough. Again, no disrespect but if you've worked on laptops before in the past as you've mentioned, what you have you done to when it came to the hard drives? This is something you should already know how to it, am I correct?

There are many different ways to diagnose a hard drive, Jay. There are hd fitness tests in the setup/bios of the laptop that you could run to start off with Again, it just seems to me that you're missing some steps in your repair work.

This board has a lot of threads on troubleshooting, diagnosing, etc. You may want to do a search and see what you can find. If not, other folks will be basically repeating what you can already find the answer to yourself - instead of asking.

 

[tf76]

Here you go to start off with

http://www.pctechbytes.com/2010/04/29/hard-drive-troubleshooting-2/

 

[MasterTech99]

Quick and dirty, try running memtest86+ to test the memory and the manufacturer's hard drive utility to test the hard drive. Both of these are free and can work outside of Windows. Other than that, spend some time on the forums and learn how to diagnose the system correctly.

Smells like pizza...

 

[BDPCR]

Usually the first thing i do in this case of a BSOD, is i set the start-up and recovery options to write a log when a dump occurs. Then use blue screen viewer, allot of times its a driver or crappy software and BSOD viewer will show you this. If no driver correlation or software correlation is found download a HD manufacturer specific diagnostic utility and run it as well as memtest. This will usually show you whats wrong. Check the AHCI settings in the bios if its a SATA drive, update those drivers on the OS and update the bios. These are great learning opportunities, don't have such a negative perspective on the whole thing. And absolutely take back the laptop and do an actual hardware diagnostic!

 

[SThompson86]

IpTech man he is a Sambo Salad

 

[Jay85]

As far as Im aware...I found IBM and Hitachi Drive Test will work on a Toshiba Branded Hd Drive.which is on Hirens Boot CD. This must be a new thing as Toshiba have always had very limited support options.All they have is there service centeres which you pay for even if your under warranty.

However If i were to replace a clients hd drive I would have to choose Seagate or Western Digital

 

[MobileTechie]

Could a Bios Update maybe have been a better option?

Yes........if it had a faulty BIOS

A bios update is probably the single most risky procedure you can do on laptop. You shouldn't do them unless you really need to.

 

[PremierTech]

1. CD Drive needed to be replaced as the thing was hanging out and the inner tray was stripped right off.

2. Bios Reports Conflict Error Between CD Rom and PATA 1
Which I assume in a normal PC would be jumper problem or misconfiguration
of the IDE cables.


Although probably unrelated to your ongoing problem, Some Toshiba laptops require their DVD drives to be set as master. As there are no jumpers & if a generic drive is used then the drive has to be opened & 2 pins soldered accross to set as master.

As i said, i dont think it helps in this problem but may be usefull later


Chris

 

[Mushin]

I have also come accross a scenario where it was the second memory channel not the ram dimms that was causing problems and suggested the motherboard be replaced.

Do those 2 progs u suggested run from a live cd or within windows?

I made a bootable CD for the DFT and I think UBCD has memtest. I know my Dr. Web CD has mem test.

 

[Bryce W]

As far as Im aware...I found IBM and Hitachi Drive Test will work on a Toshiba Branded Hd Drive.which is on Hirens Boot CD. This must be a new thing as Toshiba have always had very limited support options.All they have is there service centeres which you pay for even if your under warranty.

However If i were to replace a clients hd drive I would have to choose Seagate or Western Digital

Give Hirens a miss, it has illegal software on it. Try UBCD (not UBCD4Win), its great for low level stuff like testing memory, hard drives etc..

 

[MobileTechie]

Give Hirens a miss, it has illegal software on it. Try UBCD (not UBCD4Win), its great for low level stuff like testing memory, hard drives etc..

I wish they did a version of it without the paid-for apps on it. There are only a few illegal apps per section and it would still be a kick-ass disk without them.

 

[Jay85]

I had no idea Hirens Boot Disk had illegal software on it, thanks for the heads up, I have UBCD aswell so will use that from now on instead..

 

[Cybjun]

I think most posters here are completely missing the original question.
If he's claiming you didn't do the work thats one thing but if hes saying you didn't do the work right then offer to rediagnosis it under your warranty. If he's OK with that then test the memory with Memtest86+ (I like to have it do 2-3 passes) then run a hard drive diagnostic on the system (if its from a manufactor that doesnt have a good diagnostic program Hitachi's DFT (drive fitness test) works with most models, I would run an advanced/extended test. meter the AC adapter to verify the voltage is correct on the AC Adapter.

Do not flash the bios unless the bios update address a specific problem the PC is having.

If the client is unwilling to let you work on it, you could offer him that if he takes it to another shop and they diagnosis it with a hardware problem, and he brings in the paperwork to you showing that then offer a refund on the labor only excluding the data backup.

The specific reason for a crash isnt always needed when deciding if the problem is software as long as you've reasonably tested all the hardware you could, and windows can not always be repaired. Some times its not worth your the time and effort to the client to fix windows. People dont always have all the technical knowledge necessary to identify the specific cause of each and every problem. A lot of tech on technibble forget that not all techs are equal in experience and resources.

 

[Jay85]

Look I only deal with local residents in my little town, ng We dont do many big companies and I make a nice liviing and Im friendly and honest, If u want take ur pc to the Big Stores, They will charge u a 70 pound ( around 150 dollars) to have a crack at it and tell you all the probs with it, so for the moment im doing fine, its just this one guy that ive had niggles with and yes mayb its my own fault but ive learned from this and i urge all other techs to get that buisness kit and protect urselves, get everything in writing and document everything...Yes its tedious but if something comes back it wont bite you in the chops

 

[Xander]

P.S. Please don't use text speak, this is a forum intended for educated adults, we can cope with whole monosyllabic & multisyllabic words.

That would be great as a header to the forums.

 

[vdub12]

I have repaired hundreds of laptops in the past and on this particular one i couldnt pin point the exact cause of the PC not booting into its OS so I decided to reinstall XP fresh with SP3, it was working perfectly in my workshop and I did all relevant updates aswell as driver installing and antivirus etc... I think a Bios update would have been the best course of action as every component was reported as working, The laptop is like a 2006 model so a few years old...The Hd Drive had alot of bad sectors and errors so i did a Drive check with another comp and it seemed to be better than it was afterwards.

The Comp Booted up, Went thru Bios Checks, Windows XP splash Screen Came up, then Blue Screen, (I cannot recall the error code exactly)
then looped and restarted over and over again.

Im 25 , I have never come accross such a stubborn system, everything I tried it just would not co operate, So as a final resort I decided to back up everything and Format the drive, I really am leaning towards the bios and perhaps that needed to be updated, why was it reporting an error between the CD and HD Drive? there are no jumper settings on a laptop and the drive was securely socketed in. and it was an identical part so no chance of incompatibility.

Yes I put the drive in another comp as a slave and did some disk checks and reported as fixed, this took around an hour.

I realise there are more experienced techs here and I respect that so may I ask what you would have diagnosed the problem as or the probable cause.

Ok I only got about half way through this tread so if this has already came up I'm sorry.

You said that you have never came across such a suborn system but just from reading this I can almost with serenity tell you that the hard drive is bad.

First clue you stated there was bad sectors. Well modern hard drives don't get bad sectors in the way old drives did. On new drives bad sectors get reallocated. If you have any kind of reallocated sector count is should flag a SMART warning.

Because you have not given us a good error code for the BSOD I have to assume do to your observations that it was an unmountable boot volume. In this case there are only two fixes and neither is a n&p. The only two things that cause an unmountable boot volume is a corrupted partition or bad drive. If you are getting a reallocated sector count on the drive then its obvious. If not then you should be able to repair the partition.

Its my opinion that the drive is bad and because of this the partition is corrupted again. The only fix would be replacing the drive and reloading it again.

 

[morr]

Are you sure?

*** Filler text ***

Unfortunately, those utilities are only for Fujitsu HDD's (now part of Toshiba)
AFAIK Toshiba still do not supply any utilities or diagnostics for their own brand HDD's, one reason I will never purchase their drives

 

[Eddie]

MHDD is a great hdd tool.

 

[RegEdit]

Then I got a threatening email saying the computer doesnt work anymore and He wants compensation,

Not sure about England but in the USA a business gets (I believe) 1 or 2 more attempts to get it right. It's not working? Fine. Bring it by and I'll fix it. If you still can't fix it then reimburse him for your labor and parts if any (but take the parts back).