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Bad Hard Drive?

post #1 of 5
Thread Starter 
ok guys - it's been awhile since i've been here as everything was running pretty decent until lately... well yesterday. and now i have a problem. i have tried calling sager but was given an answerring machine telling me to leave a message or fill out a form online basically - so i went the online route and filled out a tech support request form. maybe somebody can help me while i wait on a reply from them and let me know what to expect and what have you. i was kind of undecided on whether or not to buy the extended warranty - as the budget is a bit tight right now and i thought i had a month or two to go before my time was up on buying one, but actually i only have until the 22nd of march to decide - i think. i will double check that when i do get in touch with sager... if not through the tech support request then i will call and double check by wednesday. i'm starting to think buying one would be a good idea.
anyhow - here is the transcript of the request i filled out and sent to them. i figured this would be easier than just retyping everything. i will also keep you guys up to date as sager works with me on it if you want. again - if anybody here may be able to help i would appreciate it.
thanks
--------------------------------------------------------------------



Bad hard drive?
The system crashed and would not reboot. I attempted a system restore using the RAID drivers supplied on the floppy, and the OS provided on the Midern CDROM - as I had done when I previously restored the system. The restore failed - XP installation would freeze before it provided formatting options. I tried again two times with similar results. Pressed ctrl + F to enter RAID setup and then viewed the arrays. Noticed one of the drives was "offline".
I shut the RAID function off through the jumpers and did a system restore, installing the OS on the one functional drive, without using the RAID drivers supplied on floppy. I was able to install the OS successfully. I then went into Computer Management console, then looked at Disk Management to see the status of the drives. One drive is healthy/online while the other drive is unallocated/not initialized. I tried to initialize the drive that is offline and it gives me an error "An unnexpected error has occurred. Check the System Event Log for more information on the error. Close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management or restart the computer." And so I rebooted and tried again a couple of times with the same error showing up.
I checked the event log/system and seen a few errors:

Event Type:Error
Event Source:Disk
Event Category:None
Event ID:7
Date:1/30/2005
Time:7:12:12 PM
User:N/A
Computer:xxxxxxxxx
Description:
The device, \Device\Harddisk1\D, has a bad block.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 04 00 68 00 01 00 b6 00 ..h...¶.
0008: 00 00 00 00 07 00 04 c0 .......À
0010: 00 01 00 00 9c 00 00 c0 ....œ..À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: 65 4e 00 00 00 00 00 00 eN......
0030: ff ff ff ff 00 00 00 00 ÿÿÿÿ....
0038: 40 00 00 84 02 00 02 00 @..„....
0040: a3 20 0a 12 80 07 60 00 £ ..€.`.
0048: 00 02 00 00 14 00 00 00 ........
0050: 00 b4 26 00 a8 ac cf 85 .´&.¨¬Ï…
0058: 00 00 00 00 70 ee 34 86 ....pî4†
0060: 00 d0 38 86 00 00 00 00 .Ð8†....
0068: 2a 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 *.......
0070: 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0078: f0 00 03 00 00 00 00 0b ð.......
0080: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0088: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........

and

Event Type:Error
Event Source:LDM
Event Category:None
Event ID:2
Date:1/30/2005
Time:7:12:12 PM
User:N/A
Computer:xxxxxxxx
Description:
Unspecified error (80004005).

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

and

Event Type:Error
Event Source:ultra
Event Category:None
Event ID:9
Date:1/31/2005
Time:4:49:57 PM
User:N/A
Computer:xxxxxx
Description:
The device, \Device\Scsi\ultra1, did not respond within the timeout period.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 00 00 10 00 01 00 64 00 ......d.
0008: 00 00 00 00 09 00 04 c0 .......À
0010: 01 01 00 50 00 00 00 00 ...P....
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0030: 00 00 00 00 07 00 00 00 ........


and it also has a number of information logs. if it may not be a bad drive, i'd like to try and get it repaired over the phone if possible. if the drive is bad and needs replaced i would be willing to ship the bad drive to Sager in exchange for a repaired/working drive to avoid having to ship the entire unit and save on shipping costs if possible.

Thanks
post #2 of 5
Thread Starter 
correction: i said i had until 22nd of march but i meant 22nd of feb - to buy warranty.
post #3 of 5
Well, seems like you still have time to buy a warranty. FYI: Always buy warranties for cool, electronic stuff; it's bound to F$#! up somehow.

Have you considered calling PCT, or the vendor you bought it from, and trying a HD swap-out? Is the machine less than a year old? If so, it's still under Sager's one year warranty, so e-mail David at support@sagernotebooks.com and see what can be done.
post #4 of 5
Thread Starter 
my laptop now won't even get past the "mouse initialized" point of booting up. at the bottom of the screen it says "press f2 to enter setup". if i press f2 it changes to "entering setup" but still freezes. so either both hard drives are crashed or something more serious is down.

so far i've gotten one email from sager which is stored on the laptop. but the email basically only said "we can replace the hard drive. please give the return address". probably not exactly word for word, but close. i replied (also stored on laptop) with my return address and asked again if i could just send in the hard drive and have that exchanged rather than sending in the whole unit. i also asked if i needed an RMA # for that.

then yesterday i came home and system wouldn't even boot. I called their RMA line and left a message briefly explaining the new problem and left my number and email address. no reply yet through the phone and none through email.

today i did a little fiddling around and got one of my old systems back up and running so i could communicate through email if need be. i'll give them till tomorrow after work and then i shall email them again with an updated email describing the whole problem.. in case the voicemail got lost or something.
post #5 of 5
I had the exact same problem, exactly how you described it. my #2 hard drive went out, both times... once I sent it in to get it replaced, the other time they sent me a hard drive and I replaced it myself.
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