Dell Inspiron 1750 has me baffled...ideas ?

[Couperin47]

Friends Dell laptop, of course he does no backups, WD 500 Gb HD has gone bad, chkdsk throws errors for hours if you let it, and of course it can't boot.
 
I have an identical size Toshiba drive pulled from a machine that went to scrap, test it in my desktop, it's fine and chkdsk says it has no errors. Plug that into the Dell, you can hear it spin up and the heads load...and...nothing...the Dell BIOS insists there is no HD in the machine.  wtf....? Not sure how the Toshiba is formatted, but guessing NTFS as I can even see all the files when connected to the desktop...but the Dell doesn't even think it's a physical drive, but the Dell has no problem seeing the screwed up WD HD...so it's not the interface. Ideas ?

 

[Harry Hooper]

Friends Dell laptop, of course he does no backups, WD 500 Gb HD has gone bad, chkdsk throws errors for hours if you let it, and of course it can't boot.
 
I have an identical size Toshiba drive pulled from a machine that went to scrap, test it in my desktop, it's fine and chkdsk says it has no errors. Plug that into the Dell, you can hear it spin up and the heads load...and...nothing...the Dell BIOS insists there is no HD in the machine.  wtf....? Not sure how the Toshiba is formatted, but guessing NTFS as I can even see all the files when connected to the desktop...but the Dell doesn't even think it's a physical drive, but the Dell has no problem seeing the screwed up WD HD...so it's not the interface. Ideas ?

Is there a BIOS setting for "fastboot" or something similar? If it is enabled, then disable, or vice versa. Worth a try.

 

[Marceline]

Friends Dell laptop, of course he does no backups, WD 500 Gb HD has gone bad, chkdsk throws errors for hours if you let it, and of course it can't boot.
 
I have an identical size Toshiba drive pulled from a machine that went to scrap, test it in my desktop, it's fine and chkdsk says it has no errors. Plug that into the Dell, you can hear it spin up and the heads load...and...nothing...the Dell BIOS insists there is no HD in the machine.  wtf....? Not sure how the Toshiba is formatted, but guessing NTFS as I can even see all the files when connected to the desktop...but the Dell doesn't even think it's a physical drive, but the Dell has no problem seeing the screwed up WD HD...so it's not the interface. Ideas ?

 
Check BIOS for UEFI or Secure Boot settings and disable if they are there.

 

[Couperin47]

 
Check BIOS for UEFI or Secure Boot settings and disable if they are there.

 
It's an old machine, way prior to UEFI (thank god) and the BIOS is a really sad thing no secure boot, fastboot etc. HD settings allow you to choose IDE/AHCI and set default boot order...that's about it...

 

[Harry Hooper]

Is there  a SMARTdrive setting you can toggle on/off?

 

[SumnerH]

Same cable in both machines, or is it possibly a bad cable in the Inspiron?

Flaky power supply?

 

[Harry Hooper]

Read the last comment at this site.

 

[Couperin47]

Same cable in both machines, or is it possibly a bad cable in the Inspiron?

Flaky power supply?

 
The Inspiron is a laptop...no cables

 

[Couperin47]

Read the last comment at this site.

 
At this point I'm willing to believe it needs to be shimmed, but this is the first time I've ever seen SATA connections that weren't positively connected if the contacts look clean and undamaged....the Dell mount, unlike most laptops that put the drive in a full cradle/surround only attaches the outer case cover (HD slides out the side) with 2 screws at the end. That makes as much sense as anything.

 

[Couperin47]

Removed the HD from the case cover, inserted it while held by forceps, it did not appear to seat any deeper in the sata sockets but, suddenly it worked perfectly, reattached it to the case cover, reinserted and it continues to work perfectly...another of life's little mysteries....