Dimesion 9100 - fails to boot after upgrade to Windows 7

I have a five year old Dimension 9100 that I just upgraded to Windows
7 Home Premium. Before upgrading I ran the Windows Compatibility tool
which passed everything except for the SoundBlaster sound card
drivers.

I removed the old hard drive and replaced it with a bare Western
Digital 640GB drive. I let the Windows 7 installation process format
the whole drive into one partition and the Windows 7 installation and
setup process went extremely well until the first Windows update (that
I think was initiated by the installation process, although it's hard
to tell because there were several reboots and I don't know when the
installation stopped and Windows 7 itself took over).

Three Windows updates were downloaded and installed, one was for the
SoundBlaster sound card, I didn't catch the other two.

After the first Windows Update the PC would not complete the boot
process. It hung with a black screen before getting to Windows and it
has been doing that ever since.

After multiple unsuccessful tries to reboot with and without the
Windows installation DVD in the drive I ran the Dell hard drive
diagnostics from the BIOS which failed the new hard drive with a
Return Code 7.

I've Googled enough to see that this is a fairly common Return Code
for Dells that indicates a failed\failing hard drive. It's interesting
that it formatted ok and Windows 7 was able to install and set up ok
and that it wasn't until the Windows Update that this problem started.
I have three other WD640 drives just like this one that have given me
no trouble. Maybe I'm just due now.

On a couple of occasions when I left the black screen for a while and
came back the BIOS was showing a message that there is a problem with
the keyboard. Again this is strange since the keyboard was working
fine through the Windows 7 installation process.

I'm still running the original Revision A01 BIOS and the original ATI
Radeon X600 video card.

Before I run out and by another hard drive I'm curious about peoples'
thoughts.

Is it possible that the Revision A01 BIOS doesn't like the 640GB hard
drive?

Thanks for any thoughts and\or suggestions you may have!

George


George

On 11/12/2010 2:13 PM, Just me wrote:
I have a five year old Dimension 9100 that I just upgraded to Windows
7 Home Premium. Before upgrading I ran the Windows Compatibility tool
which passed everything except for the SoundBlaster sound card
drivers.

I removed the old hard drive and replaced it with a bare Western
Digital 640GB drive. I let the Windows 7 installation process format
the whole drive into one partition and the Windows 7 installation and
setup process went extremely well until the first Windows update (that
I think was initiated by the installation process, although it's hard
to tell because there were several reboots and I don't know when the
installation stopped and Windows 7 itself took over).

Three Windows updates were downloaded and installed, one was for the
SoundBlaster sound card, I didn't catch the other two.

After the first Windows Update the PC would not complete the boot
process. It hung with a black screen before getting to Windows and it
has been doing that ever since.

After multiple unsuccessful tries to reboot with and without the
Windows installation DVD in the drive I ran the Dell hard drive
diagnostics from the BIOS which failed the new hard drive with a
Return Code 7.

I've Googled enough to see that this is a fairly common Return Code
for Dells that indicates a failed\failing hard drive. It's interesting
that it formatted ok and Windows 7 was able to install and set up ok
and that it wasn't until the Windows Update that this problem started.
I have three other WD640 drives just like this one that have given me
no trouble. Maybe I'm just due now.

On a couple of occasions when I left the black screen for a while and
came back the BIOS was showing a message that there is a problem with
the keyboard. Again this is strange since the keyboard was working
fine through the Windows 7 installation process.

I'm still running the original Revision A01 BIOS and the original ATI
Radeon X600 video card.

Before I run out and by another hard drive I'm curious about peoples'
thoughts.

Is it possible that the Revision A01 BIOS doesn't like the 640GB hard
drive?

Thanks for any thoughts and\or suggestions you may have!

George


George


Well, the Dell hard drive diagnostics give an indication of what may be
the problem: the hard drive. To be sure, download and run the hard
drive manufacturer's (WD) diagnostics. These are more thorough than
Dell's, and they can sometimes "repair" bad sectors by replacing them
with spares... Ben Myers

On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 19:11:08 -0500, Ben Myers
wrote:


Well, the Dell hard drive diagnostics give an indication of what may be
the problem: the hard drive. To be sure, download and run the hard
drive manufacturer's (WD) diagnostics. These are more thorough than
Dell's, and they can sometimes "repair" bad sectors by replacing them
with spares... Ben Myers

Thanks for your input, Ben.

Update:
I booted again from the Windows 7 install DVD and installed again and
this time the process took much longer but completed successfully.
While it was installing this time I saw the 100MB system partition
which I did not see the first time. After installation I successfully
installed 50 Windows Updates(!) and a bunch of software, at which
point I got a Windows pop up warning me that it had detected a hard
drive problem and I should backup my data and check the hard drive.


So it looks like I should go ahead and do that and reinstall again.

Any suggestions for a good, reliable hard drive in the 250 - 320GB
range? I spent way too much time online this afternoon researching at
Newegg and a couple of other places and basically it seems all hard
drives suck . . .


George

On 11/12/2010 8:34 PM, Just me wrote:
On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 19:11:08 -0500, Ben
wrote:


Well, the Dell hard drive diagnostics give an indication of what may be
the problem: the hard drive. To be sure, download and run the hard
drive manufacturer's (WD) diagnostics. These are more thorough than
Dell's, and they can sometimes "repair" bad sectors by replacing them
with spares... Ben Myers

Thanks for your input, Ben.

Update:
I booted again from the Windows 7 install DVD and installed again and
this time the process took much longer but completed successfully.
While it was installing this time I saw the 100MB system partition
which I did not see the first time. After installation I successfully
installed 50 Windows Updates(!) and a bunch of software, at which
point I got a Windows pop up warning me that it had detected a hard
drive problem and I should backup my data and check the hard drive.


So it looks like I should go ahead and do that and reinstall again.

Any suggestions for a good, reliable hard drive in the 250 - 320GB
range? I spent way too much time online this afternoon researching at
Newegg and a couple of other places and basically it seems all hard
drives suck . . .


George


I've gone back and forth between Seagate and Western Digital, the two
most popular drives by makret share. Both have their failures, too.
Recently, I had a WD 1TB drive fail in a customer system after 9 months.
Fortunately, the system was a high end one with RAID 0 mirroring, so
no data was lost. All the other WD drives I've sold in the last year or
so still are working. Or nobody told me any different. I also had a
run of Seagate drive failures about 18 months ago, causing the switch to WD.

I do not have much experience lately with Hitachi or Samsung, the other
two major drive manufacturers still standing.

You're right. Buying a disk drive these days is a total crapshoot, as
they are all under pressure to sell at ever lower prices with always
increasing capacity. Something's gotta give. Product quality, a
microcosm of the entire personal computer industry... Ben Myers