Troubleshooting Computers



Troubleshooting Computers

There are basic rules of troubleshooting a problem, whether it is a hard drive or any other problem.

1. Identify the problem (gather information from the customer to identify the nature of the problem).

o                 Can customer show you the problem?

o                 How often does the problem occur?

o                 Has any new hardware or software been installed recently?

o                 Does the problem occur in a specific application? 

2. Isolate the problem.

3. Correct the problem

4. Verify corrective action taken

5. Document your steps. This is useful for two reasons. For you or others to refer back to  on the next possible service call for the same equipment  and because you may not be the only one servicing the computer and the next person will need to know what steps you have taken.

6. Follow-up  - contact the customer  after they take back the equipment and see if they are problem-free.

*** Some problems are hard to duplicate, especially intermittent hardware or software problems.  Refer to customer's information on exactly what error message or problem occurred, what applications was the customer using, how many applications were open, etc.....  Sometimes the computer works fine in the shop.  but when the customer takes it back, the problem returns.  This is always frustrating to the customer, and technician. Could an externally connected peripheral  that the customer has have caused the problem? Communicate with the customer as often as needed.

Overheat issues?

*** If the laptop or desktop overheats at the customer site but not in the shop,  ask if the location the computer is kept is in a area where the air vents could be blocked. If a laptop,  is it being used on  a soft object such as a bed/couch  where the air vents on the laptop bottom are being blocked? If the fans are weak, they may fail to cool effectively at the customer site, but work fine in the shop. Clean the CPU fan and/or CPU heat sink blades, especially if a laptop. Dell diagnostics has a fan test and there are third-party fan test utilities as well.  Google ' computer fan tester'. Here are a few utilities to test the temperatures of the computer fan and other hardware -

• SpeedFan. Here is the web site: .  

• I8kfanGUI is a graphical Windows application to show the internal temperatures and to control the fan operation on the Dell Inspiron/Latitude/Precision notebook series. Here is the web site: . There is also the original DOS command line fan utility at the web site.

Troubleshooting Resources

• Application's help feature

• Manufacturer support web site - Many links are provided at \~tom

• Manufacturer knowledge base - look at bottom of this page for several links

• Forums - look at bottom of this page for several links

• Microsoft Support site

                * Advanced troubleshooting for general startup problems in Windows XP

                * XP FAQ at

• The Elder Geek web site

• 'Google'. the problem

• Hard Drive diagnosis procedural suggestions

• Here is a site I started of some of the more common Windows XP error messages and possible solutions

Troubleshooting Hard Drives In Windows XP / 2000

 

 If you have a computer with a hard drive (HD) that you suspect may be faulty, there are methods you can use to determine this. This first section will use general procedures, and not those specified by a particular PC manufacturer. 

Later in the article I will discuss:

• Dell hard drive diagnostics

• Data recovery

• Web sites for reference, including HD manufacturer suggestions for diagnosing their hard drives

• Hard Drive utilities

 

Symptoms of a failed or failing hard drive:

• During POST: “HD not found” or “HD not detected” error

• During POST: “Device not found” message

• During POST: No Operating System found

• During POST, “….. Drive 0 operating outside normal……..” message

• ‘Clicking sound’ from hard drive / hard drive area of computer.

• Computer keeps rebooting  or  Computer takes excessively long to boot up

• System “Blue Screens”   or System “Freezes” or “hangs”

 

Procedures used to verify hard drive status [ Isolate the problem!!!! ]:

• Get into setup (CMOS).  Is the HD detected? Is Date / time correct? (if not, CMOS battery may be bad).

• If a desktop, Reseat HD IDE connector on both the system board and hard drive,  and the power cable.  If a laptop, reseat hard drive.

• If a desktop check the jumpers on your IDE devices. (Most laptop hard drives do not have jumpers)

• Boot up with a DOS Diskette or boot CD and run FDISK (A DOS Diskette image can be obtained here:  . A Dos CD ISO image can be downloaded here: ). If you get a “No Hard Disk detected” when using FDISK, and you have checked the cables, then the hard drive likely failed.

• If a computer does not recognize or "see" a hard drive, a sure fire step to help isolate the problem  is to install a known good hard drive into the computer or install the suspect HD into another similar computer and see how it acts.  (I keep a spare desktop IDE HD and SATA HD and a spare laptop IDE and SATA HD with just the DOS system files on it which allows it to boot to c:\. This will tell you if the computer can boot off a hard drive).  

• Run the hard drive manufacturer’s diagnostics on the drive.  Visit for links to such utilities.

• Run a utility such as HD Tune to evaluative the hard drive for bad sectors. web Site:

• If you want to Defrag the hard drive, use jkdefrag. Download it here.

• Sometimes a HD can be ‘fixed’ using the HD manufacturer’s utility or by doing a low-level format on the hard drive but if the hard drive has bad sectors, repairing them, if possible, is usually a short-term fix.  I uses two different utilities  for low-level format (Eraser and PC Inspector's E-Maxx ). Each of which will perform a low-level format but E-Maxx will not work on SATA hard drives.   These utilities will irreversibly WIPE the HD of all data. IT will be as if the hard drive was new. No data will be retrievable after using these utilities.  After performing a low-level format,  run FDISK from a DOS prompt and create a partition and run the diagnostics utility again.  If the hard drive still fails, replace it!!!

• Run CHKDSK.  CHKDSK is a Dos / Windows XP and Windows 2000 command that checks a hard drive for file system integrity. There are multiple avenues in which to run this command. A few methods are listed here: 1:) Boot off a  Ultimate boot CD  (A great CD tool used to troubleshoot.)  and run CHKDSK /R.   2:) Boot from  a Windows XP CD, enter the Windows XP recovery console, and run CHKDSK /R.  A CHKDSK document is found here, in which research was done at Dell and Microsoft web sites.  The common parameters used with the CHKDSK command are /f and /r. Other Recovery Console commands may help you repair Windows files that will allow you to boot into windows.  Here are two links for XP Recovery Console: Microsoft web site and Wikipedia .  Recovery Console commands I use regularly are: CHKDSK, Expand, Fixboot, Fixmbr and Bootcfg. Some of these commands have parameters.

• GOOGLE THE ERROR MESSAGE OR PROBLEM YOU ARE ENCOUNTERING!!!!!

---------------   END OF SECTION ---------------  

Dell Hard Drive Diagnostics in Windows XP

 Dell installs diagnostics software on their computers but if you reformat the hard drive, replace the hard drive or delete the partition, you will lose the diagnostics partition and will need to run it off the Dell Diagnostics users to order, at usually no charge one copy of the original CDs for your computer at Go here to request your CDs.

 

Here is a Dell technical note: How to run the HD diagnostics on a Dell computer: Here is a summary of it:

To utilize the build-in Dell diagnostics use one of the following methods:

1. Most Dell laptops - when power is off, press and hold the Fn key while turning laptop on, then release both keys.

2. Newer Desktops - at the Dell splash screen, hold CTRL, ALT, and D keys simultaneously. The computer beeps once to acknowledge that the hard drive diagnostics  has been initiated

3. All Dells - During POST, press F12 for “boot options”.  When the menu appears,  select Diagnostics to run the DST diagnostics.

This will run a quick test of most of the hardware in the computer.  When complete, it will prompt you to enter the diagnostics partition, if present.  Again,  if you deleted the partition or installed a new HD,  this partition may be gone and only the abbreviated DST diagnostics will be available. If you get a Dell diagnostics error code, write it down!!

4. Boot off the diagnostics CD for your model Dell.

 

Data Recovery in Windows XP: for data recovery from corrupt or damaged hard drives

• I have been using Final Data 2.0  for several years.  IT HAS A HIGH SUCCESS RATE.

• Disk Investigator is fairly new to me but appears to do a fairly good job. (both free at )

• A new utility as of 2006, Spin Rite, has not been tested too often by me yet but is advertised as a good utility. See here for information. Other utilities are out there!!

 

 Web sites for reference

• Troubleshooting hard drive installation -

• Hard Drive Crash - 7 Common Symptoms and Solutions that will help you get your critical data recovered when you experience a hard drive failure. -

• Inaccessible Boot Device: -

• Hitachi/IBM checklist  for troubleshooting hard drives  - 

• Maxtor / Seagate : Guide to diagnosing hard drives -

• – ‘google’ the error message you are receiving.

For Hard Drive diagnostics links, visit 

For other hard drive troubleshooting links visit 

Here is a link to a good chkdsk document I compiled.  I am working on a BSOD ( Microsoft XP Blue Screen of Death)  document. It is a work in progress.

 VISTA HD steps - a work in progress. check back mid-2008.

Hard Drive Diagnostics

 

Below are links to hard drive diagnostics from the manufacturers. Links are given for the diskette version and the CD iso image.

• IDE hard drives

• SATA hard drives

• Third party diagnostics

• Defrag utilities - a fragmented hard drive will slow down your processing

• Data recovery from a crashed or failing hard drive

• Permanently delete a hard drive's data

• Dell computers either have quick diagnostics built-into the image or on a CD they provide with the computer.

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The following IDE information added 7/2005

|Western Digital - EIDE drives |Hitachi fitness test -  |Maxtor -  EIDE drives |

| |EIDE drives | |

|diskette |diskette |diskette |

|CD iso |CD iso |CD iso |

|  |  |  |

|WDC downloads |Hitachi downloads |Maxtor downloads |

|Jumper settings |Jumper settings |Jumper settings |

|Error codes |Error codes |Error codes |

|  |  |  |

|warranty check |warranty check |warranty check |

|RMA (product replacement) |RMA (product replacement) |RMA (product replacement) |

|WDC storage devices |Hitachi storage devices |Maxtor storage devices |

|  |  |  |

 

|Toshiba -  EIDE drives |Seagate -  EIDE drives |Other  EIDE HD drive  |

| | |manufacturers |

|Diskette - not |Diskette |  |

|available | | |

|Use Hitachi utility - | | |

|see here. | | |

|CD iso - not available |CD iso |Fujitsu 2.5" new and Discontinued |

| | |Hard Drives    |

| | | Other site |

|jumper settings |jumper settings |Samsung |

|error codes |error codes |  |

|troubleshooting |troubleshooting |  |

|  |  |Quantum / Conner |

|Toshiba Service and |Seagate Hard Drive support site |Google search results |

|support site | | |

|Hard Drive  recovery |  |  |

|Utility | | |

[pic]

The following SATA information added 7/2007

|Western Digital |Hitachi fitness test -  |Maxtor -  SATA drives |

|- SATA drives |SATA drives |(MAXTOR IS NOW OWNED BY SEAGATE AND USES |

| | |SAME UTILITY) |

|diskette |diskette |diskette |

|CD iso |CD iso |CD iso |

|Windows version |Windows Version |Windows Version |

|WED Support |Hitachi Support |Maxtor Support |

|  |  |Hard Drive Troubleshooter. |

 

|Seagate - SATA drives |  |

|diskette |  |

|CD iso |  |

|Windows Version |  |

|Seagate Support |  |

|Hard Drive Troubleshooter. |  |

|  |  |

[pic]

Third party diagnostics or utilities for testing hard dives.

|Hard Drive tune - |

|HD Tune is a Hard Disk utility which has the following functions: |

|HD Tune is a hard disk benchmarking and information tool. You can use it to measures the raw performance of your drive(s), |

|including transfer rate, burst rate, access time and more. In addition, it provides detailed information about supported hard |

|drive features, as well as current temperature, S.M.A.R.T. Information (if available) and an error scanner. Checks for bad sectors|

|on the hard drive. |

|HD Tune can be run while in Windows or from  a CD ( Ultimate boot CD is a great example) |

|Pass-Mark Burn-in Test - Computer stability and reliability testing software for Windows & Linux. BurnInTest is a software tool |

|that heavily loads all the major subsystems of a computer with the aim of thoroughly exercising the hardware in a PC in a short |

|period of time. |

|available at |

|Particle Fury 1.45 - is a fresh new benchmark program for Windows systems that tests your system's memory performance. Available |

|at |

|  |

|SpeedFan - Tests the computer's hardware temperatures. |

|I8kfanGUI  - tests the fan in Dell Latitude / Inspiron / Precision notebooks.  |

| |

| |

| |

| |

| |

|  |

[pic]

>Defrag utilities - a badly fragmented hard drive will slow down processing time. Windows XP and VISTA have built in defragment utilities but there are third-party utilities that work great!

* In XP, there are several methods to start  a defrag () : 

• Start -> Programs ->Accessories->System tools->Disk Defragmenter

• Start\Run\dfrg.msc

• Open My Computer, Right click on the on the local volume, select properties, On the Tools tab select defrayment now.

* In VISTA:

• To find Disk Defragmenter, go to Start Menu -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools.

* Free Defraggers / Defragmenters / Defragmentation Tools

• Wincontig -

• Ultra Defragmenter -

• JkDefrag -

[pic]

Data recovery from a crashed or failing hard drive

• I have been using Final Data 2.0  for several years.  IT HAS A HIGH SUCCESS RATE.

• Disk Investigator is fairly new to me but appears to do a fairly good job. (both free at )

• A new utility as of 2006, Spin Rite, has not been tested too often by me yet but is advertised as a good utility. See here for information. Other utilities are out there!!

[pic]

Permanently delete  hard drive data.

Hard drive zeroing procedures on Windows-based computers

Hard drive zeroing procedures on Macintosh computers

Windows XP System Information (start, programs, accessories, system tools, system information) utility as well as Belarc Advisor, provide information on your hard drives that may not be available in Device Manager or My Computer

Dell computers either have quick diagnostics built-into the image or on a CD they provide with the computer.

To access the Dell quick diagnostics:

• Press F12 during the prompt to do so  in POST

• On newer Dell laptops, hold down the 'Fn' key then press POWER

• On newer Dell desktops, during POST,  hold down the CRTL,ALT, D keys to access the 90/90 hard drive diagnostics.

• Boot off the diagnostics CD that shipped with the Dell. If you lost the CD,  some diagnostic ISO files are available for download through the Drivers Download page

•

See this Dell Technical notice for reference:  How to Run the Hard Drive Disk Self Test( DST) on a Dell Computer .

|Article ID:  | 298970 |

|Date | 2/15/2008 |

|Published:  | |

|Last Revised:  | 3/12/2008 |

Request a set of original CDs, which include the  operating system, Drivers/diagnostics CD. The original CDs that shipped with your computer can be requested from Dell. As of 7/10/2008 the link is here.    This link seems to change therefore if the offered link is broken,  go to support. and search for "how to request backup CDs"

[pic]

 

 

Software Tools for Troubleshooting  As mentioned above, one must isolate the problem to a specific hardware component, or software as the source of a problem.  For a few examples, check here. Here are a few software "tools" we use to determine the source of a problem.

• XP Recovery Console - Recovering Windows XP using the Recovery Console

• XP repair -  A Repair Install will replace the system files with the files on the XP CD used for the Repair Install. It will leave your applications and settings intact, but Windows updates will need to be reapplied.

•

• Ultimate BOOT CD - is a bootable CD which looks like the Bart PE CD, (discontinued in 2006) with many additional utilities, that allow you to repair and diagnostic almost any computer problem.  Additional utilities can be added to the Ultimate Boot CD ( UBCD) as well. We customized  the most recent version considerably to meet our needs. If you would like a copy of our UBCD, email me at t1m2m60@. I will tell you how to obtain it and at what cost. ( probably around $ 5.00).

•

• Slipstreamed XP or VISTA CD.  A slipstreamed CD has all the updates post-SP2 ( and now XP SP3). This is a essential tool when imaging multiple systems as it prevents the need for downloading all the updates from Microsoft each time you re-image your computer.  One can also incorporate other programs into the CD as well.  Here is Microsoft's site on slipstreaming.  Third party sites (and there are a lot of them) usually have better information than Microsoft sites.  The Microsoft Office CD can also be slipstreamed as well.  For examples, 'google' the term slipstreaming!

• Bootable DOS CD - A CD burning software program such as Nero (get Nero Demo here) or Roxio will mage a bootable CD, using files from a Win 98 or DOS diskette. This is very useful as most computers do not come with a 3.5" diskette drive now.

•

• Mem Test - Tests memory modules.  If you think your memory is bad, and you have two or more modules, test one at a time.  If a module fails, test it in another socket . Web Site:

•

• HD Tune - evaluates the hard drive for bad sectors. web Site:

•

• If your computer runs slow and you want to defrag your hard drive, jkdefrag is a good free utility to run. There are other free ones. Google ‘defrag utilities’.

• Software Image Library - Build a library of clean, fully updated images of computers.  For Example,  we have over sixty images of Dell models with fully updated images.  This saves countless hours of not needing to download operating system updated and component drivers. Only the Windows XP license code needs to be changed.  Since we sell just 5 or 6 Dell models each year, we see the same models regularly for service.

• Simply search for the problem / error message in a search engine such as or or one of many discussion groups.

•

• General software cleanup.  We use this step-by-step form as a guide  when cleaning a computer's HD of junk files, spyware ,and vi

Support sites of the larger computer companies.

|Company  ** |Support |Warranty |Knowledge Base |Forum |

| | |Lookup | | |

|Apple |support |link |select here |Apple Forum |

|Apple iPOD |support |link |select here | iPOD forum |

|Compaq |support |link |select here |Compaq Forum |

|Dell |support |link |select here |Dell Forum |

|e-Machine |support |link |select here |  |

|Hewlett Packard |support |link |select here |HP XP Forum |

|IBM Thinkpad |support |link |select here |IBM ThinkPad forum |

|Lenova |support |link |select here |Lenova forum |

|Microsoft |support |  |select here |Microsoft Forum |

|MSDN |  |  |  |MSDN forum |

|Gateway |support |link |select here |Gateway Forum |

|Toshiba |support |Link |select here |Toshiba Forum |

|Sony |support |link |select here |Sony Forum |

** For additional links to company support web sites' visit the Product Support drop menu at

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