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General discussion

How Do I get BIOS to recognize the internal HDD

Apr 2, 2011 11:38AM PDT

I have a dell laptop and windows will not boot up, and I dont have the recovery discs. I went into BIOS, and went to change the boot sequence to HDD first, but there is no option to boot from the hard drive. There is no number beside the HDD, so it is not recognizing it. What do I do? Can someone please help? Thanks. The computer is a Dell Inspiron 1525 using windows vista.

Discussion is locked

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Plug In A Working Hard Drive
Apr 2, 2011 11:48AM PDT

It appears like your current drive is dead and as such, the BIOS doesn't see it.. Of course, you could re-seat (pull out, then push back in) the laptop hard drive just to make sure that it's not something like a bad connection between the slip-in hard drive and the connectors to the motherboard.

Hope this helps.

Grif

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And if replugging the hard drive ...
Apr 2, 2011 9:45PM PDT

doesn't help, the recipe is:
1. Install a new hard drive. See if that works.
2. Order the recovery discs from Dell.
3. Reinstall Windows from the recovery discs.

With #1 you might see that a new hard drive doesn't work either. Than change #2 in "Order a new motherboard and recovery discs from Dell". That's so expensive that buying a new laptop might be a better idea.

Kees

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recovery disks from dell
Apr 20, 2011 5:44AM PDT

I had to purchase the recovery set for a Dell 518, with Vista Ultimate (no hard drive). The cost was $18.48 delivered.