A suggestion - backup everything to external disk before doing any changes so you don't loose anything.

Denis

Hi,

Even though chkdsk says it is unreadable can you read it from windows explorer ?

Have you also tried putting disk in external caddy and reading from another PC ?

Denis

Hi,

I would contact your supplier and explain problem, ask their advice before doing anything. At the moment you don't know whether the hard disk has failed or the controller board.

Worst case...

Have you tried plugging into another computer ?

If so what result ?

Denis

As you may know DVD's are regionised and if you move a DVD from one region to another then it can't always be read, which is why I thought we were close to solving.

Have just bought laptop with...

PLease post this in the correct forum and stop trying to hijack this topic.

Is the PC abroad ? If so what country ?

I think we are close to the sorting

Denis

Hi Em,

Plan B

Have you any DVD's from elsewhere, Purchased or otherwise ? If so do these work ?

At the moment the it is not clear to me whether the problem lies with laptop or the machine...

Welcome to the site.

If you have burnt the DVD's on other PC's then I find that they are not always readable on other PC's even if you use the same standard for the DVD.

There are two standards...

Thanks - kind of you to say.

Before I give up on disk I would try swopping it with second drive (changing jumpers, of course) and see if you get same results.

Do you get a drive letter showing...

Hi,

This what I would do using jumpers rather than cs

1) Connect only the boot disk to ide1 cable with jumpers making it a master.
Check it boots ok Setting bios as it comes up.

2) Connect...

A few questions

1) how old is the Dell ? Some older ones cannot support larger disks.

2) Are you sure it is a 400 Gb disk ?

3) what did you do to connect it and get it working ?

4) What...

Have you put them back the same as they were before ? i.e the disks are same order on ribbon cables ?

Have you changed any jumpers on drives ? If so put them back to original settings.

Also...

Have you tried a different USB port ? If you ports on front and back of computer then they are often on differnt usb controllers. So if one is failing then if you try opposite to where you are and it...

I tink the disk is taking too much power from usb port.

Try connecting external power supply to disk or plugging into another usb port or remover other usb connections.

I have also seen this...