[barney lp]

can some one please help me??
my laptop (dell latitude d600) was working fine until i got a Virus, and my laptop started to slow down, i ran virus scans and spyware bt suddenly a blue screen came up and my laptop kept rebooting itself and the blue screen kept coming up.

I tried to atleast get the windows to let me log on bt i cudnt i tried all the ways even in safe mode the blue screen kept coming up...

so i ran diognistics and it told me.....

DST Short Test Failed Error code 1000-146
unit 0: DST log contains previous errors.

So i reinstalled windows xp, and after 3 tries i finally got it working, but i still have the problem and my c:/ drive has errors i can not even install anti virus, it keeps saying the c drive is curupt and has errors...

ive tried doing disk chk bt the probs still there....its not working...........

Please help???
thank you

[StumpedTechy]

Run a HDD diagnostic utility on your PC. It sounds like you have a bad HDD.

[barney lp]

thank you for ur help,
how do i do that? i dont know much about laptops...
is it a serious problem??

[Gnomad]

You would need to know the manufacturer of your hard drive, then you can download the tools from here. Most , you would download the ISO image and burn it as an image to a cd. You would then put the CD in your drive and boot from it then run the diagnostic program. If I am not mistaken, on the Dell there should be an option to hit an fn key and boot to a diagnostic partition to run a longer test on the hard drive.

[barney lp]

how do i find out what manufacturer my hard drive is?
i cant download anything, the laptop keeps tellin me sumfins curpt.
i cant even bookmark anything as it says file or directory is currupted and unreadable?
what is an ISO image is it a file?
Thank you very much for your help, im sorry i dont know much about cmputers

[Gnomad]

To find the hard drive manufacturer you would probably need to open the hard drive compartment on your laptop and look at it and see. Unless you can get to the Device Manager we might be able to find out from there. If possible go to START then click on RUN and type in devmgmt.msc and then hit ENTER. After Device Manager opens click on the + next to Disk Drives and see what it says.

[Rich-M]

If you are using another pc to post here you can download this and put on flash drive or cd and simply copy and paste to desktop as it does not install, just opens if you take the standalone version:
http://www.gtopala.com/siw-download.html
This will tell you the brand of hard drive under "storage" but if you have no other access to computer, then you need to go to a shop as there is no way to fix it without being able to download anything to at least another computer.

[barney lp]

oh yes its Hitachi
i can now download stuff, Thank you very very much for ur help.
the onli problem i still have got the dst problem,
i do try to run chekdisk but it says its unable to complete it?
what shud i do now?

[Gnomad]

Download the Hitachi Drive Fitness Test ISO image. Assuming you have a CD Burner and software, burn the disc image to a CD. You have to burn it as an image, don't just copy it. Boot from the cd and test your drive.

[Rich-M]

If checkdisk will not complete then the hard drive is "toast".

[barney lp]

hey dnt say its toast u serious??

it does the chek disk bt stops on stage 4 outa 5 wer the chekdsk is verifyig the file data.

ok ill do that drive fitness test ive never done anything like that befor hope it works
because ive just installed a fresh copy of xp some of my drives are missing so once ive gotten them ill be able to burn it as an image onto a cd, ill try it and let you know how it goes
thank you

[Rich-M]

Quite serious if checkdisk will not complete there is no reason to run utilities on it, it is dead.

[barney lp]

no its not dead, i think its getting better, lol ive reinstalled xp, everything seems ok, ive defragmented the laptop, i can now download also,
everything seems ok but i still get the dst failure notice in diagnostics. hopefuly the drive fitness will sort it

For the hitachi Drive fitness, theres 3 options.
- Download Drive Fitness Test Windows Diskette Creator v4.15 b01 (12.16.2008) (Direct Link)
- Download Drive Fitness Test v4.15 b01 (12.16.2008) - Diskette Image (Direct Link)
- Download Drive Fitness Test v4.15 b01 (12.16.2008) - CD Image (Direct Link)

wich one should i download?

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by barney lp

no its not dead, i think its getting better, lol ive reinstalled xp, everything seems ok, ive defragmented the laptop, i can now download also,
everything seems ok but i still get the dst failure notice in diagnostics. hopefuly the drive fitness will sort it

For the hitachi Drive fitness, theres 3 options.
- Download Drive Fitness Test Windows Diskette Creator v4.15 b01 (12.16.2008) (Direct Link)
- Download Drive Fitness Test v4.15 b01 (12.16.2008) - Diskette Image (Direct Link)
- Download Drive Fitness Test v4.15 b01 (12.16.2008) - CD Image (Direct Link)

wich one should i download?

Don't take my word for it and BTW, drives do not "get better" and I love optimism however:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/19...drive-distress

[barney lp]

why do u keep saying that, i get scared, somethings getting better tho....
the drive fitness will make it better!!