hey how is everyone? i bought a hard drive back in october and every month it stops working and i have to reformat. so from the beginning, i turn the computer on it goes to the dell boot screen, then it goes black like its about to go to windows but all i get is a white blinking cursor but it won't boot. If i swap hard drives i can still retrieve info from the broken drive if i try to reinstall windows it won't let me the only way to reinstall is by reformatting the drive. again tday i have the same problem but at least this time instead of a white blinking cursor it says disk read error press ctrl,alt del which does nothing but take me back to the same screen. i dont want to have to reformat my comp cause then i have to transfer everything over and its a long process is there a way to fix the read error and get windows working school is a time killer and if i have to regormat i wont be able to use my comp till next week longer if i have to transfer all my stuff. on suggestion from a friend i now store all my things in c: folder instead of windows folder so if i reinstall windows my things will be safe. which is useless if i cant reinstall windows. any help is appreciated. thanks
Hayro

Hi Hayro,

A few questions:

- Is this a desktop or laptop?
- What make and model of hard drive did you purchase? What make and model is the original drive?
- Why did you need a new drive?
- How are you installing Windows on the new drive?
- Do you have a full Windows installation disk or the Dell recovery disk?

And a small point - if you save data to C: (the root of the main hard drive) then your data will still disappear during a reinstall. You need to back up to an external drive (hard drive, CD/DVD, flash drive). If you have a full installation disk then it may be possible to keep your data.

the computer is a desktop.
the hard drive is Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JB 250GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM

original hard drive is also westrn digital not sure what model

i didn't need a new hard drive i just wanted a bigger one the old was 80 gig new is 250 gig

since its a new hard drive i formatted it and installed and every time its had this problem the only option i had was to format and install

and i have windows xp home edition sp2 disk.

and thanks for the tip about c folder i thought my things would be safe there if windows crashed now i know.

anymore info needed?

oh and just in case it matters i do back up info onto my old drive whenever the new one crashes its just that since its smaller i have to do several transfers and burn onto disks all the info. its very annoying.

Hi Hayro...Welcome to Castle Cops !

I would run diagnostics to see what info it gives...

Diagostics may already be on your computer..if so Boot into diagnostics mode by tapping F12 as computer boots into dell screen... If diagnostics is not already on your computer check to see if you received the disk with your computer or download from Dell website...The following two links should help....

Running the Dell Diagnostics: Diagnostics and Troubleshooting Guide

How to Run the Dell™ Diagnostics Utility


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