53 replies to this topic

[Doug]

Hi eharri2, Thanks for keeping us updated with your progress. Bummer. Sorry to hear of continued difficulty. Hope all goes well, but things don't look too good for that particular Hard Drive. Doug

[eharri2]

Hey Doug, Yea. From what I found out, Toshiba doesn't have a hard drive diagnostic utility or a repair utility to fix these kinds of things. But on the website, it said that 2.5" SATA Hard Drives have a three year warranty with Toshiba, and I bought my Dell Laptop in 2006 as a high school graduation present, so I'm wondering if it's even benfecial to give their Technical Support a call and see if I can possibly replace my hard drive. Any opinions? Sincerely, eharri2

[Doug]

Dell will probably only honor the basic (1) one year warranty, unless you actually paid for the 2 or 3 year extended warrantee. Extended warranty is a "good" idea with Laptops, in my opinion. Also the accidental breakage insurance can come in handy for laptops. _________________ If Dell will not respond favorably to your request about HD warrantee, consider submitting directly to Toshiba. Best Regards

[eharri2]

So I just got done checking the hard drive with CHKDSK C: /f and it said it found and corrected one or more problems; however, it still has the same symptoms as before. I'm wondering if I should keep on running the tests until it corrects all of the problems. Anyways, I'm about to give Toshiba a call about my hard drive and see if they can do anything about it since my one year warranty with Dell has been expired for a while now. Sincerely, eharri2

Edited by eharri2, 13 February 2009 - 02:46 PM.

[Doug]

Though is is tedious, if I have a hard disk structure problem, I routinely repeat CHKDSK until no bad-sectors are identified and no files are moved during the scan. Most of the Hard Disk will still be good, and CHKDSK places flags before and after any bad sectors so that they don't get used again. In subsequent usage, the operating system will ignore those flagged areas and use the HD as if it was a single un-interupted good disk.... only a byte or few smaller. However, bad-sectors in the wrong or right areas can make the HD unusable, or at least unreliable. I like your plan with Toshiba. Best Regards,

[eharri2]

Hey Doug, I've got some great news I just got off the phone with Toshiba Technical Support, and I found out that my hard drive was still under warranty. So they're gonna go ahead and send me a new hard drive, which is awesome. I might have to consult your help about safely replacing a hard drive though. I definitely don't want to fry the hard drive with an accidental static charge or something like that. Anyways, talk to you soon. Sincerely. eharri2

Edited by eharri2, 13 February 2009 - 03:37 PM.

[Doug]

[eharri2]

Although their information was somewhat vague I thought. They asked me to ship the hard drive to their support center in the original box or a box of greater value. Well for one, I definitely don't have the old laptop box that I received in 2006. And two, what kind and how large of a box are they asking for that defines the value of it? I really don't want it to get shipped back because the technicicans at the support center didn't like my Sony box and thought it wasn't of great value. Sincerely, eharri2

Edited by eharri2, 13 February 2009 - 04:10 PM.

[Doug]

Who are you referring to? Toshiba? Dell? Most likely, Toshiba is going to send you a Hard Drive "before" you send the old one back. If they are telling you something else, let me know. You will want to Keep the old HD long enough to get your data (even though we know you already have backup, they don't, therefore should send you the HD prior to requiring yours as a return.... argue with them if necessary) It will be interesting to read how Toshiba treats you. Many of our other Members may benefit by learning from you. Best Regards

[eharri2]

Hey Doug, Actually, I have a lot of information about my experience with Toshiba and their shipping policy. According to their e-mail copying of the confirmation letter is "strictly prohibited." So, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post the e-mail exactly how it is. However, I will tell you that they require me to send the hard drive to them to their Repair Center in Fremont, CA as well as pay the shipping fee. Then, I guess after so many days, they send back the new hard drive and pay for the shipping cost to me. But yes they are making me send them the hard drive before I receive the new one. "If you have further question, please contact Toshiba Call Center at 510-651-6798." --> I think I might have to give them a call. Sincerely, eharri2

[Doug]

I think I might have to give them a call.

I do appreciate from a business point of view, why they would want to see for themselves that one of their products failed before replacing it for free. You probably accept that principle as well.

But in actual practice, I've experienced various hardware manufacturers "saying" send it to us "first".
And then the next few days I already receive the new one, before I had time to box up the old one and send it for return.
It just depends on who you talk to at the manufacturer and what the policy is.

I'd call and argue.
I can't guarantee it will do any good, but I'd try.

Best Regards

[Abydos]

Hey Doug,
I've got some great news I just got off the phone with Toshiba Technical Support, and I found out that my hard drive was still under warranty. So they're gonna go ahead and send me a new hard drive, which is awesome. I might have to consult your help about safely replacing a hard drive though. I definitely don't want to fry the hard drive with an accidental static charge or something like that. Anyways, talk to you soon.

Sincerely.
eharri2

Hi eharri2

That is good news

Just sorry you had to experience those problems for it tho
But as Doug said earlier, run CHKDSK routinely so you don't end up
with yet another faulty drive. Once a month or so, should do. And you
don't have to enter the recovery console to do that. It can be run from either
the Command-prompt or by right-clicking your system drive. Here is
how for future use.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265

Scroll down to where it says "Manual steps to run Chkdsk".

At least you are a lesson richer, altho it is one of those you'd like to be without

Regards Abydos

Edited by Abydos, 13 February 2009 - 06:24 PM.

[appleoddity]

Hey guys,
I appreciate all the help; however, I still think there's a virus on my computer. I'm just gonna go ahead and fully reformat, if I can with the PC Restore feature on Dell, and if not with the fully reformat option. And after that, I'm immediately going to install the Online Armor Personal Firewall as soon as I have access to the internet. I believe my system is compromised, and I actually don't have access to the Internet anymore. I'm writing this post on my brother's computer. However, as soon as all of the drivers are reinstalled, I'm going to run PCPitstop and its utilities. What do y'all think?

Sincerely,
eharri2

If the malware expert says your computer is clean I would say there is a 99.999% chance it IS clean. The long startup times is caused by failing services causing long delays. Those same failing services have caused your internet and sound to stop working. It is a cascading effect. A simple look in the event viewer would show the failing services and you could post back here with that information for further help. In severe instances of services failing, usually a repair install of Windows fixes it right up without having to do a complete reformat. I don't belive your problem is malware related, and reformatting the hard drive everytime there is an issue is no way to learn. Although, it is effective.

[eharri2]

Hey Appleoddity, Very good point. I definitely agree. I kinda rushed things, and didn't really consider the technical and knowledgeable support that you guys offer. I should've been a little bit more mindful but oh well . Anyways, yea I'm about to ship off my hard drive, and when I get my new hard drive, I will definitely remember to run Chkdsk from the command prompt every month as well as keep my security software up to date. A computer slowed down by security software is better than a really fast computer with complete vulnerability. Anyways, I'll keep you guys posted on what happens with Toshiba. And yea, Doug, I do agree about the business perspective of sending the faulty hard drive back. It makes sense. Be back soon. Sincerely, eharri2

Edited by eharri2, 14 February 2009 - 05:32 AM.

[appleoddity]

Yeah... I totally didn't see all the posting about the hard drive problems. For some reason I took a quck look and missed that there were a couple more pages of posts. So, bad sectors are certainly problematic. This is a very common issue on laptops. A program I use is called SpinRite (not free) and it scans for bad sectors, recovers as much data as it can and locks out the bad sectors from future use. Many hard drives can end up with a bad sector or two (usually from mishandling it at some point) and once they are locked out, continue to work for many years with no problems.