My Dell Inspiron 6400 Problem.

Hi There

I own a dell inspiron 6400 and my initial problem was that my laptop couldnt get past the boot screen (where the windows logo appears).

The first thing i tried to do was install a copy of windows 7 onto it booting straight from the cd. However, again the different windows 7 logo screen appeared and seem to crash at exactly the same point as when i tried to boot it straight from my hard drive which has Vista on it.

Next thing i did was run a Diagnostics test on my system and all kinds of errors appeared which basically said your hard drive is knackered. (All tests had big red crosses with failure next to them)

So i thought, need a new hard. So I ordered a new Samsung 320gb SATA hard dive to replace my Western Digital 80gb SATA drive.

My hard drive arrived today so i took the old one out and replaced it with my new one. I loaded up my BIOS and it shows up there all ok. I then ran the Diagnostics tests again and it breezed through them no problems. (Excitement slowly building) .

I then boot from the cd with Windows 7 in it and it again stops in exactly the same point as it did before i had replaced my hard drive.(Excitement quickly dies and is followed with a blood vessel nearly pooping in the side of my head).

I tried a Re installation CD with my vista home basic addition on again booting from cd. And it hangs in exactly the same place.

If i just leave it to boot through the hard drive it comes up with the message. No Boot Sector on internal hard drive.

I have no idea what to do please help me

Reply 1 : My Dell Inspiron 6400 Problem.

But I can't tell what "place" the installer is dying on.

Try this. Remove any added RAM, unplug any USB things and try again.

Try this next. Head to the BIOS and load factory defaults. Try again.

Bob

Reply 2 : My Dell Inspiron 6400 Problem.

I havent added any RAM have unplugged usb devices and tried restoring factory defaults.
It hangs when the Windows logo appears and freezes on the loading bar at the bottom of this screen

Reply 3 : My Dell Inspiron 6400 Problem.

When I see a machine like this I know that something has failed OR the Windows CD is from some other machine.

As a test I'll boot an UBUNTU LIVE CD (see google) and if that hangs we know the machine needs repair.

" Disable USB keyboard and USB mouse in BIOS
Disable LAN in BIOS
Disable FDD in BIOS Disable Sound in BIOS "

Do you see the line of thought there? Disable anything you can in the BIOS, change the SATA emulation to IDE, AHCI, SATA NATIVE and test each version.
Bob