louise

Can anyone recommend a decent place to take my Dell laptop to have it looked at/repaired?

It is 2.5 years old and just started making a very high pitch noise, a clicking noise and I got a message saying no hard drive could be found?? All foreign to me!!! I really would like to get it repaired if possible because it was my dads gift to me when I left the uk so we could keep in touch.

Thanks in advance

asprilla

Sounds like the hard drive has died. You may, or may not, have lost everything on that drive. I hope that you made a backup... if you didn't, you'll learn for next time. Sorry to sound harsh.

You have a few options:

a) call up a mobile laptop repairman. Tell them what you told us. They will fix it and charge you $$$.

b) do some reading and research on the internet. Test to see if your drive really is dead. Attempt to retrieve data from it yourself. Worst case - buy a new HDD and install everything again yourself.

c) find a friend/colleague/neighbour who knows a little about computers. Ask nicely and get them to fix it/help you fix it.


I'd go with option c.

GarryP

Agreed. They are much more likely to be able to salvage data, if it's at all possible. Any shop-oick is likely to just replace the drive and charge a fortune for the privilege.

There is the possibility that its the CPU fan, though pretty unlikely.

The offer of a bottle of single malt is usually right level to pitch it at.

louise

Thanks guys for your replies, unfortunately I don't know anyone that could help me and I certainly don't have the know how to even know where to begin.

Don't suppose either of you are local to Vic Point and would like the challenge for say a bottle of single malt and $$$

I have just tried to ring Dell and after holding on for 30 minutes on a 1300 number I gave up

GarryP

Well I'm certainly not in the right neck of the woods, asprilla will have to answer if he feels inclined.

Two upfront things you need to consider. Do you have a back up of data, progs, etc.? Do you have the recovery disks burnt from the recovery partition that they tell you to burn?

The high pitched whine sounds like either the bearings in the hard disk have gone, or the head is somehow gouging its way around the disks. Clicking is usually the seek on the heads not finding the right track data. Either way, don't keep running it and its likely you'll need to replace the drive. This is simple, quick thing to do - but it also means you'll have to reinstall an operating system, the programs, and the backup data you may have. And if you don't have the OS or progs, you might have to acquire them again.

In short, the hardware can be replaced easy enough, the software/data is another matter.

asprilla

Sorry I'm on the other side of town, and to be honest I don't know how to attempt retrieving the data.

Do you have the windows installation disk that came with the laptop?

louise

Thanks guys, I can't find the disk that came with and I didn't do a backup because I kept clicking remind me later....... yes I clicked it for 2.5 years

Lesson well and truly learned

I have been ringing round and looks like I am looking at about $300 minimum and then it needs a new battery on top.

We live and learn

Cheers for helping me out where you could I really do appreciate it

datamile

New battery will be way over 100, best to go a whole new laptop, and then see if anyone can recovery anything from the disk at your leisure.

Someone should have a caddy to mount the drive. What brand/model was the laptop ?

GarryP

Hmm, well the price of a 1TB disk for it would be ~$100, and chances are it didn't come with one that big anyway. Swapping over is a 30 second job. Not having the recovery disk, or a backup, you have the problem of getting a working system back on there. If you have the required numbers the usual is to 'acquire' some media.

Not sure why you need a new battery, shouldn't be dead after 2.5 years unless you abused it.

I'd be inclined to ask around if anyone knows anyone - its a simple operation even for an 11 year old.

I tend to agree than $400 is not going to be a good use of the money.

asprilla

just ditch your current one and get a new laptop. Something like this one would be good. Bear in mind that this laptop is most probably far, far better than your current one. Remember to apply for the cashback.

fish.01

Something like this helps:

http://www.dealsdirect.com.au/p/vant...ck-nst-d200su/

You plug your old harddrive into the hard drive dock (see link), plug the dock into a different computer and see what you can read and copy from it by just browsing the directories using windows explorer.

If nothing shows up then you run recovery software against the drive though I have never had to go that far as my drives always showed up enough stuff to copy off the old drive.

Alternatively you get someone to plug your hard drive directly into their computer (in bay 2 for example, if they are only using the main hard drive bay in their computer). The dock just gives you an easy way of connecting it to any computer via usb.

louise

Thanks for the info it is/was a Dell Inspiron 1545

louise

Thanks Garry, I didn't think I had abused it but a message saying "your battery is reaching the end of its usable life, consider replacing your battery" has been appearing for the last couple of weeks!!

louise

Thank you for that recommendation I have been looking around over the weekend, this one looks good

louise

Cheers for the link I will have a good look at that later when I can get access to another laptop in the house. As much as my iPhone is my savior at the moment I really would like to read all about it on a bigger screen