Computer Harddisk Problem

This afternoon I got another shock of my life when I came back to my room.

I believe many computer geeks would have similar phobia, that is booting up the computer showing nothing but a dead blank screen. It's able to show the Dell's logo but it couldn't load the Windows Vista's loading screen (which shows the bars loading). The computer was still running normally this morning, so it's really surprising to encounter such problem.

I was of course panicked but it doesn't help to solve the problem. The immediate action would be contacting Dell's Japan tech support line. Was being rejected of service as I need to register my international warranty on the Japan's database, which said need to take a few weeks of time to process duh.

Helpless, I decided to DIY to diagnose the problem. Ran a few diagnosis which took a few hours to complete. In the end, here's the error message I got.



I'm not a computer specialist so these codes look more like alien codes than some human-readable lines.

Inserted Windows Vista's disc to run the startup repair. It does helped to get the computer loaded into the desktop page, but one obvious problem is that the computer's reaction was many times slower than usual.
This was solved after I force-restart (press the power button for few seconds til it turn off) the computer. It appears to be normal again and I waste no time to contact Dell Malaysia via e-mail to inform bout this problem.

The representative Eugene Khoo was fast replying my e-mail. In just within 30 mins I received the initial hint that the problem lies with the harddisk.

Later I've made another call again to Dell Japan's tech line. I do noticed that for Studio laptops it's considered as "premium" laptop so the tech support line is available 24 hours heh.

The attendant was a lady by the name Itou (伊藤 I presume). Patient and helpful to go through the entire process describing and troubleshooting the problem.
I'm amazed with myself that I'm able to speak through the entire conversation with a minimal pause to think of what should I be speaking hahah. It's totally different than how awkwardly I deal with it last year when I first contacted Dell Japan's tech support.

The verdict: A technician will be contacting me tomorrow noon to arrange an appointment to replace the harddisk on this Thursday.

I've also been informed that should the 320GB's harddisk stock is unavailable, I'll received a complimentary 500GB harddisk upgrade, a consolation I guess. But it's still not confirmed yet, hah.

Anyway, this harddisk will soon to be disposed, so gonna backup everything onto the faithful Western Digital portable harddisk. Like I said before, external harddisk is the best invention to mankind next to bread and butter lol.

When it comes to backup, the part that ates up most spaces are music files. A lot of them! I dare to say it's possible to reach 100GB of it OMG! Followed by movie files and photos. I might be considering getting another external harddisk for secondary backup, just in case of anything like this....

Good thing is that for this time it comes with a warning and I still able to backup the stuffs before wiping it out.

Oh my this weekend gonna be busy restoring my data.... 'til then ciao guys.