# [SOLVED] Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525



## woodchopper88 (Dec 2, 2005)

Operating system - Vista Home Premium

I was playing music from my laptop the other night when someone dropped a tv remote on to the touchpad area of the keyboard. This is quite close to where the hard drive is placed in the laptop.

The laptop immediately switched off and every time I've tried to turn it on since I've had the error 'internal hard disk not found' and the hard drive makes a strange continuous beeping noise. I ran the diagnostics and the Dell error number is 0141 no hard drive detected along with some built in bleeping error codes.

I've tried reseating the hard drive with no success. I wanted to remove the optical drive and try it but I still haven't found a screwdriver that fits the tiny screw. Not sure it would solve it anyway.

What does the problem sound like and what can anybody suggest?

There is a fair amount of data on there not backed up but nothing massively important - still would love to recover it though!

Please help and thanks


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## GZ (Jan 31, 2010)

*Re: Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525*

hello woodchopper88

Your hard drive was likely damaged.
Do you have a desktop PC available?

If so, try installing the HDD in the deskop and see if the BIOS recognizes it. A laptop SATA drive uses the same connectors as a desktop SATA drive.

If the desktop doesn't recognize the drive then your HDD is definitely damaged.

If the desktop recognizes the drive, you can then back up your information and run HDD diagnostics on it. 

-GZ


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## woodchopper88 (Dec 2, 2005)

*Re: Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525*



gavinzach said:


> hello woodchopper88
> 
> Your hard drive was likely damaged.
> Do you have a desktop PC available?
> ...


Can you give me a brief explanation of how I can connect my laptop's HDD to a desktop PC? Do I just swap the HDDs over and boot up the desktop?


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## GZ (Jan 31, 2010)

*Re: Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525*

Yep. Pretty much. When you boot up you will enter the BIOS to see if the drive is recognized. 

The desktop needs to support SATA.
All you have to do is plug a SATA power connector and attach a SATA data cable from the drive to the motherboard. There is no reason to mount. It is only going to be connected for test purposes.


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## k77 (Nov 10, 2010)

*Re: Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525*

also, once you remove the hard drive from the laptop, you can power on the laptop and tap F2 to get into the bios. 

but everything stated is pointing to damage done to the hard drive. when something impacts the basic area where you have a hard drive spinning/reading data, that usually leads to problems.


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## woodchopper88 (Dec 2, 2005)

*Re: Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525*

The desktop computer that I have access to does not use SATA connectors so I'm unable to check the HDD.

If I just assume that it is broken (and it certainly seems that way) then how do I determine which HDD I need to replace my current one? Can I buy pretty much any 2.5" HDD?


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## GZ (Jan 31, 2010)

*Re: Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525*

Any 2.5" SATA hard drive should work.


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## woodchopper88 (Dec 2, 2005)

*Re: Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525*

Thanks for your help.

I've ordered a replacement HDD. Hopefully it'll install ok but if I have any problems I'll be back. :tongue:


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## GZ (Jan 31, 2010)

*Re: Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525*

We will be here. Be sure to update us one way or another!
Good luck


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## woodchopper88 (Dec 2, 2005)

*Re: Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525*

New hard drive is up and running. Installation was no problem. Don't think I'm going to bother checking the possibility of rescuing the old hard drive or even determining if it's definitely dead.

Thanks very much for your help


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## GZ (Jan 31, 2010)

*Re: Hard Drive Not Detected on Dell Inspiron 1525*

Good to hear! Glad you got it sorted.


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