James Stead

Hi Folks, Dell Ispiron 2200 - three years old, rarely used in past...

Had the laptop for past few weeks - worked well. Few days ago it would not boot up past opening Dell logo. Can only use F2 or F12
functions to enter Set-up or One Time Boot-up.

Ran full diagnostic program from Set-Up, no errors shown.

Spoke to tech support girls in India - They took me through several reset procedures, no difference !
One finally stated problem could be hard drive needs reseating - removed and reseated hard drive - laptop booted up cleanly...

Next day Non-boot up again - several more attempts removing and reseating hard drive, sometimes worked OK... sometimes NOT !!!

Today, carefully setup with earthing wristband, removed H/D and very gently applied pressure to every H/D connecting pin to ensure firmer contact when inserted...

Worked normally for five bootups, finally reinserted the two securing screws - unit then would not bootup normally !!!
Back to square one...

Several times from India, the technical (?) staff suggested could be a loose wire ( ??? ) to the H/D - This would indicate to me that it is a fairly common problem with Dell laptops...

Any positive comments or suggestions would be more than welcome...

Thank you, James.

TriggerFinger

have you tried another HDD? funny if your current HDD becomes loose to cause a failed boot up. most HDDs are usually mounted into a caddy with screws. the caddy itself fits snugly that... although possible, it could be very unlikely.

if you have another HDD, may be you can test it on your laptop. if it will need to be reseated again and again then may be the connector on the laptop side has become loose and may need some inspection.

i suggest you get hold of the service manual first for your model and if you are game in opening the laptop up, try inspecting the connection between HDD and motherboard. i am not quite sure if there are wires there, AFAIK the connector is soldered to the mobo.