Is this laptop hard drive going bad?

Tim

I have a Dell Latitude CPiA366XT. I currently have XP Home on it with 64 MB memory. I know, not enough memory. I'm working on that now.

My problem is this - when I go to start up the computer, sometimes it fires up correctly on the first try, sometimes it takes several tries, sometimes it takes over 10 tries. All I know is that if the Dell logo doesn't appear within 3 seconds of pressing the power button, it will never appear. Shut the laptop off and try again.

I've noticed that on the startup tries that work, the hard drive makes more noises. When the startup attempt does not work, the hard drive makes very few noises.

So is the HD going bad, or is it all because the computer doesn't have enough memory? It works but is very slow.

primesuspect

Download a diagnostic tool from either hitachi or fujitsu (chances are, either one of those are who manufactured that drive) - or find out the manufacturer of the hard drive. Either way, a drive diagnostic that boots off of a floppy will tell you for certain whether the drive is bad or not.

muddocktor

You can download a diagnostic program for your hard drive directly from Dell, Tim. They also use IBM hard drives too; my old P3 Inspiron 8000 had an IBM drive.