Hello, Have a dell inspiron 1525 and had just installed a new hard drive in it about 2 weeks ago, used the dell vista disc and the dell drivers discs to get it all up and going zero problems ran decent, did all windows updates, and all was going good till yesterday when shutting down things just froze up, (had to hold powerbutton to get it to respond even after waiting over 30 mins for it to do anything) then upon restart I got the black windows error recovery screen, figured start normally and all would be ok yet nope...

Started with the option of start windows normally, it almost starts (dell splash screen, windows progress bar) yet right when it would go to the desktop in the very last steps it ends at the windows recovery screen again, then i tried to last known good configuration (same loop back to error recovery screen), same thing happened with the safe mode option.

Then I put the vista disc in from dell and rebooted from the cd drive (setting cd as 1st in bios), windows loaded it's files, then went to an install or repair screen, picked repair and it told me to pick the os i wanted to repair, but there was no os showing to repair?

I hit next and then picked startup repair which went thru about a 45 min attempting repairs type searchbar, and the end it told me to hit finish to restart windows normally, so i took out the disc and hit finish, but I am right back at the windows error recovery screen.

Any ideas what I can try or do next here? Is there some error log or something I can access somehow to give more clues as to what is wrong?

I see for a HAIR second a blue screen during this loop process but I can't read a thing on it, it comes and goes SO fast just see the flash of blue yet can't read it.

Bill

Ok on the next attempt at startup recovery based off the dell vista disc, before i hit finish i saw an area that said check here for diagnostic and repair details.

This is what I found

Number of repair attempts 1

session details
system disk - \device\harddisk0
windows directory= (its blank)
autochkrun=0
number of root causes=1

Tests performed
system disc test
completed successfully error code 0x0

disk failure diagnosis
completed successfully error code 0x0

disk metadata test
completed successfully error code 0x0

Root Cause Found:
System volume on disk is corrupt.

Repair Action: file system repair (chkdsk)
Result: completed successfully error code 0x0


Not sure how much this helps but it's at least a bit more info... (when i hit finish it still goes to the windows error recovery screen).

The first original dell (WD) 320gb hard drive ended up making noise and was replaced after about the 1-1/2 yr mark, this is a new fresh dell (WD) 500 gb hd and had installed all the dell discs on it (vista, drivers etc) zero problems for a week here, in fact thing was ZOOMING for vista...After all the above stuff was done and I still couldn't get into windows I decided to run the dell diagnostics just to see what it said, it gave me a message saying

hard drive test
error code 2000-0142
self test unsuccessful status 79

Ok I know the first drive was bad, this drive (bought new) replaced it and worked for about a week here, now getting this message when running dell diagnostics....

What would cause this on a new drive? I am using a cooler pad under the unit, no excessive heat buildup or anything (nothing gets hot), surge protector on the powerline its plugged into.

Seems to be hard drive failure according to this dell diagnostics just really confused as to why and how since its a new drive, unless i have horrible doa kinda luck, the thing ran great for about a week so you'd think i would either get a good drive or a doa drive (not a week out of it then dump).

Just want to figure out why this drive error stuff maybe happening?

Any help or suggestions appreciated, guess its time to call dell and see what warranty i have on the drive i just got from them since their diagnostic thing says its bad...

Will try to google those codes to see what I can find too...

seems as i check google for those codes it comes up as Drive Self Test failed, so guessing for whatever reason the drive IS bad

Will hook up externally on other pc to try and grab some of the basics I had on there ughhh...
Bill ;(

Pulled the hard drive out of the laptop, currently have it running via a usb adaptor on main pc and running western digitals lifeguard diagnostics with an extended physical test (says will take about 6 more hours to complete), but figure if dell diagnostics on the laptop is saying the hd has issues then this 6 hr test will confirm it, just again seems odd the drive is new worked great for a week and now tests bad due to dells diagnostic report so I am going this route to confirm if the drive is bad or not.

Last night i let the western digital lifeguard program run with this hard drive hooked up via usb adaptor to my main pc, took just over 6 hours woke today to the results which show the unit as PASS.


So I am confused, if dell's diagnostics tool on the laptop says the hd didn't pass their test yet the main computer running western digitals test utility says the drive is good, then which do I believe?

The original hard drive was replaced due to the dell diagnostics saying it was bad (and I wanted more hd room), so to be safe i just upgraded, but now this one is testing bad in the dell yet on main pc 6 hr test it shows pass.

I realize this has gone more from an originally thought of vista issue to possibly more hardware issue, but I couldn't edit the main title or move thread, just trying to sort out what's going on here.

Any ideas?