Dell Hard Drive Failure [Solved]

I have the XPS 8100, 1.5TB HD, 8GB Mem

The hard drive failed so I went and picked up a new Barracuda (same specs as original but 2 TB)

I replaced the HD and cannot get it to load up recovery disks.

On power up I hit F12 and boot from CD/DVD
It will show extracting Windows files from disk but quits and goes to sleep

Any ideas or pointers?

The original HD is removed and replaced.

After installing the new HD, do I just boot from the DVDs I made for recovery when I first bought the computer.

Ive never replaced a hard drive before

If the Dell has more then one video port (vga, dvi, etc) try switching monitor around if you can. May be pumping video out the wrong adapter port.

OK
I swapped to the other monitor (DVI) connection
Really no change

I retried again and this is what I observed

Powered down,
Powered on
hit F12 and went into boot option
inserted disc 1 of 2  for recovery
screen showed - Windows is loading files

Windows normal boot up screen (with the 3 swirling balls) displayed then Dell Data Screen came up for Recovery

I selected the option to put back to Factory

It took off thinking and the monitor went to sleep at 24% complete
The DVD drive popped open after a little bit and I inserted disk 2. (Monitor still asleep)

It is down there still running away with monitor asleep.

Will check on it in a bit to see if any changes.

Not sure if anything is going right with the monitor asleep (is sleeping normal or is there a way to stop it so I can see whats going on?)

Hopefully this will work

Mike -

I looked at the spec's on your system and it appears there is an pci-e video card but possibly also a built in vga on the motherboard (H67 chipset). Sometimes Dell hides the on-board vga port behind a black snap-on cap. It's possible that once windows loads it's loading drivers and switching to the on-board vga port. Don't know if that is what is happening to you but it's happened to me before.

Good Luck
Steve

Well I had a second wind hit and went to check it out,

there is an extra DVI connection under the cap, 

I swapped to that port-no change, HD is still thinking away, I think.

Before you would get a Windows OS DVD with the computer, with a newer computer, you do not get a disk (as I now have a computer without a Windows OS DVD after buying a Windows 7 computer. But I have partitioned my harddisk drive to several partitions (different Drive letter like F:, G:, H:, I:, and store a complete back up of the OS on one of those partitions. If the hard disk fails, I will perhaps use the recovery disk to read the backup on a partition that still can be read if put in as a second harddrive to mount the OS backup to the new hard drive. Otherwise you need to have all of that on DVD disk (which I still have to do as I stopped at Disk 4, and estimated that it would take around 10 DVD disk and some hours to make a complete backup of the OS on DVDs. I pretty sure that you have something to start up the computer but you are not recovering an OS that is on the hard disk, you are trying to put the complete OS on a new hard disk and with that you do not have it anywhere to do that with. I still would try and read the failed hard disk (by putting it back into the computer as a second harddisk) to see if you can access the files if possible to get the OS on the new hard-disk drive. That is all I can suggest. If you have a sticker on the side of your machine, then the number for the OS may be on that (I don't even think I have one on my new computer though - a Gateway, and I know I have one on my old computer yet to this day). ?? Otherwise it's call or e-mail Dell and see if they can suggest anything.

Oops or actually the second hard disk will have the backup of the OS to put on a new first hard disk then with the recovery disks. Well, however it works which is what one has to do, make it work to restore the OS.

And just again thinking about it, Dell will probably want you to take your computer to a authorized Dell place or send the computer back to them, and hopefully you registered your computer so they have you are file as registered. I'm done, because that is what companies started doing - not supplying a Windows OS disk with the computer anymore. Blah!

It's late so I'm probably misunderstanding, but I believe Mike is trying to run the System Recovery DVD's that the dell utility created for him (basically a recovery partition on DVD's) and not a backup restore (tho that would have been nice to have).
Windows 7 install files easily fit on one DVD. 

But even if the DVD's work you may have a problem in that the partitions might install to be the same size as on the old hard drive
(because they were a partition image) instead of expanded to fit the 1TB new drive.

Let us know what dell has to say.

If the original hard drive is gone you will have to reinstall with a Windows 7 disc and the drivers downloaded from the Dell downloads.  When I worked on the Dell users support forum this was the procedure that needed to be used, if the user did not create a full hard drive (all partitions) backup with a program such as Acronis True Image. http://techpp.com/2009/11/11/download-windows-7-iso-official-direct-download-links/

You can download an iso version of Win 7 (download the exact same version you have, e.g. Win 7 64 bit) burn an iso DVD.  You can use the Win 7 product key from the tag on the PC.    If you don't have a DVD burning program that will burn an iso, download the free Imgburn.

Win 7 will install many drivers, however with the Dell prorietary OEM hardware some will not be correct, such as you will need the Dell sound driver.  Whatever drivers are needed you can download from www.support.dell.com  use your service tag number to access the downloads.  The "My Dell Downloads" will have any applications or utilities (e.g. whatever CD/DVD burning program that came with the PC).

Good luck Mike!

I would get a backup program, such as Acronis True Image (very popular) and first make a full backup of the hard drive (all partitions) to a separate hard drive.  Then do periodic (full) backups.  If the drive would either fail or just corrupt its an easy task to completely restore back to the status of the last backup. No more lost recording sessions, user data, programs, etc.

Glad you're up and running Mike.

Good to hear, and yes there are "Power Settings" or sleep mode settings you can get up in Windows. One is "Never Off" or something like that where the monitor never goes off or into sleep mode, like anything else, like moving the mouse to wake up the computer. I never have the computer turn off into sleep mode - I have it "Shut Down" completely. For a hard disk, you can have it sleep say after 20 minutes of non-use to help preserve the hard disk so it is not on all the time. The rest of the computer you can set to never go into sleep mode, but that is me, I turn off my computer when I am not using it by shutting it down and not having anything go into sleep mode except the hard disk which is powered down if not using it.