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Thread ID: 109724 2010-05-20 10:15:00 Dead Dell Latitude D610 johcar (6283) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
886657 2010-05-20 10:15:00 (I know - a dead Dell is the best kind - and not that uncommon...)

A mate's daughter was given this Dell a month or so ago - she has 5 school assignments on it and when she went to fire it up today, got the Dell Splash screen then "A disk read error has occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart"

Doing this loops through the same process again.

I have removed the HDD (an 80GB Western Digital) and popped it into one of my enclosures and then plugged it into my laptop to see if I can rescue any data.

But when I try to access it I get a message "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable".

My assumption here is that the drive is now no more than a cheap paperweight, but could someone please confirm this?

Is there any other way to access the drive?

Looks like I can get into the BIOS...
johcar (6283)
886658 2010-05-20 11:33:00 Try the WD diag tools? See what that brings up. What version of windows is on it?? Try a linux cd see how far it gets Speedy Gonzales (78)
886659 2010-05-20 11:47:00 Ran the WD test suite - everything passed except the HDD.

Will have a look around for my Linux CD.
johcar (6283)
886660 2010-05-21 07:20:00 Booted the Dell up on a Ubuntu USB version.

Looks like the HDD is a dead duck: "Unable to mount 80 GB Filesystem".

My mate's daughter now has a very busy weekend trying to recreate those 5 assignments.

Probably not a bad lesson to learn though: backup, backup, backup!!!
johcar (6283)
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