I own a Dell XPS M1210 notebook. I have recently had the problem where when I have tried to boot the computer it has come up with the message saying that no Hard Drive was detected. Up until that point the computer had been working fine with no problems at all. I did a Pre Boot Assessment and the computer passed everything except for the Hard Drive. I have followed the instructions on the Dell Support Web page (reseating the optical drive, and the hard drive) but the Hard Drive is still not detected by the BIOS.

Has anyone else his problem and know how to fix it? I was thinking that it might be a problem with the connectors between the computer and the Hard Drive, but I wouldn't know how to go about fixing the problem. It is quite important that I get this fixed soon as I have a lot of important data stored on the Hard Drive that I need.

Hope someone can help

Hi pjhale,

Welcome to WhatThertech.

Sorry you are having problems with your Notebook.

By any chance is it still under warranty so you can take it back to for a complete overhall. If it is, it is not wise to open it or change anything until the manufacturers cover the warranty for you.

This sounds like a hands on problem as Notebooks are so different to PC's and it mostly takes an IT person to open it up and find the problem, hopefully under warranty.

kind regards,

Thanks for replying,

Its not under warranty so will have to pay to get it sorted. A good over haul is probably what it needs.

Hi again,

I really think that it would be the best thing for you to take your computer to an IT. In the end it will be money well spent.
List out exactly what you want him to do and get a quote before you leave it with him. Also get an estimate of the time he will take as if he is good he will know where to go immediately to get it up and running.

Good luck and please post back with results of how you get on. You maybe able to help us in telling us what the result is so we can in turn help another with the same problem in days to come.

kind regards,

I have had one of the IT guys at work to look at it for me. He says that the Hard Drive is damaged in that the actuator arm has fallen onto the platter thus damaging it. That explains the 'clunking' noises that I heard when I tried to boot up the drive. Other than that he found no other problems with the computer. He is replacing the drive with a larger drive (120 Gb, the old one was 80 Gb) for about £80 including cost of the drive and the work.

If I wanted to recover the data it would need to go to a data recovery centre where they could get the data off, though without any guarantees, for about £300. I am still undecided about whether the data is worth retrieving, but at least I'll have the computer back working in a couple of days.

Regards and thanks for the help tallin

Penny

Penny,

Thanks for the update on your computer. Not the best of news, however you did the correct thing getting hands on advice.

About your future and thinking about backup. It would be wise to think about Ghost 12 or Acronis True image backup. Yes, they cost money, but not anything like the cost of recovery software and labor to have your data back as quoted to you recently.

You would of course need an internal removable HD for the backup for either depending on your choice of software. Worth having a read about them at the links provided as one or the other may alleviate all the worry such as you have at this present time.

I run both, Ghost 10 in my case on my PC and Acronis 10 on my Laptop. So if the worst happens I would be up and running again in about 20 minutes which is indeed a happy situation if the worst does happen to your current HD.

Hope this helps, and good luck in all you do in the future.

kind regards,