Lola has died. She lost consciousness yesterday, was revived again briefly (by fluke, it seems) whilst I manically plonked the contents of my Windows Desktop and “My Documents” folder onto my external 30GB HDD and then was shut down last night, and has not booted up since.
She was purchased at the end of February for goodness sake, this should not be happening to a PC that is not even 2 4 months old. [The stress has forced my brain to malfunction in sympathy and now I can’t even count!]
I’ve emailed Dell with my service tag and the plethora of error message that greet me every time I poke the power button, I’ve yet to hear anything.
I just wanted to explain what was going on here incase someone more knowledgeable than me should happen across my blog and know how to fix my ‘pooter. Unfortunately, it is precisely this side of IT/computing where my knowledge runs bone dry. I just don’t have a fucking clue.
Fortunately, I did have the presence of mind to keep a pen handy whilst I was ranting expletives at my now defunct wonderbaby and praying to God to let it restart just long enough for me to get my documents and photos onto some form of removeable storage (which He granted, but now Lora is even more dead that she was before…).
Please note before the reading the following error messages that I am running on Windows XP Media Centre and the only bits and bobs I have attached are my 3-in-1 printer/scanner, the monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers. I have no external storage plugged in and only 1 harddrive onboard… If you need any more spec details, just comment and let me know.…
I’ll go through what happens:
I turn computer on, Dell screen followed by black command-line screen…
Loading PBR for descriptor 2...done
A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart
So, I press Ctrl+Alt+Del, it restarts, I get a Dell screen followed by a black command-line screen again…
Error auto-sensing secondary master harddrive
Press F1 to continue or F2 to run setup utility
I press F1 and then get:
No boot device available
Press F1 to continue or F2 to run setup utility
I press F1 and get more of the same. So I restart again and get a Dell screen followed by black command-line screen…but this time the message is slightly different to before (cue bolding):
Loading PBR for descriptor 2...failed
A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart
After repeatedly going ’round a couple of times (‘cuz yesterday the perseverance paid off, as I said, and I managed to save some of my stuff), I once got this message:
Previous attempts at booting system failed at checkpoint [Ithr]
Contact Dell Support blah blah with details
I want to cry. That’s my new baby…why is it dead? I didn’t do anything, I promise! I shut it down all nicely the night before and it’s been working fine up til now — it hasn’t even had a notorious Windows blue screen wobbly, or anything…it just makes no sense… 
The only thing I had noticed was that it had gotten louder these last few weeks, but I just figured that it was probably just due to dust build-up and the fans going 10-to-the-dozen because of the hot weather…
Anyone got any ideas?
My name is Claire and this is my blog. I live with my Partner and our 2 year old adopted Greyhound, 
This design was inspired by & made with the greatest admiration and respect for the work of the late John Heartfield.
Durn, that really sucks. MY Dell computer, named Jackie, is still running. The only thing I know that’s wrong is that whenever you turn it off, there’s a stupid blue screen of DEATH. Though, if it has any more problems, I might not know. My brother has taken Jackie over, and I’m stuck with a broken laptop.
Yeah… From what I know, Dell is known for stupid computers.
Unfortunately, I know too little about computers to really help. But it looks like there’s something wrong with the hard drive. That the computer can’t sense it. Maybe something happened to it? Doesn’t the F2 run the… BIOS? I’d check that.
Errgh. D:
When pressing f2 (when its throwing a wobbly) and having a look at the setup utility, it doesn’t recodnise my HDD as being there… But just now, it DID recognise it and booted…maybe the connection is iffy?? Any thoughts anyone?
My Dell, Metatron, is about 3 months old and has recently start to freak out. A couple of images do this weird fuzzy think until I shut Firefox down.. I thought it was an internet error… until the fuzzy image thing started on my computer itself. So, then I was like.. WTF… And that’s my story.
Other than that, I’m clueless as always.
i’d tell Dell that the hard disk is very intermittent, and you want it changing. have you run up the Dell Diagnostics?
I’m fairly sure that if you hit F12 as it boots it might give access to the diagnostic partition. All of ours have it — pointless for me though as I image the drives and obliterate it.
Failing that, go to support.euro.dell.com, give it your asset tag, and download a copy of the diagnostics test kit.
And don’t let them give you any crap. They excel in crap. I’ve now has 20 PSUs expire out of 70 machines in one batch — Dell say “isolated instances”. Only 2 service personell have admitted that Dell has had 2 product recalls on PSUs recently..and that was when I lied and said “We were told there was an issue with these machines”.
I also had a motherboard expire 3 weeks ago. What do I get? “Are you able to fit them yourself, or should we send out an engineer?”. I just laugh and say “no, I’m used to it..I can rebuild them with my eyes shut”.
Reasonable machinery, but a lot of quality issues in the recent ones it seems. GX240 — good. GX150 — good. GX110-good. GX60-pants, along with the high end Precision 360 CAD stations. SX240/SX260 seem to have the same issues as the GX60s with regard to PSUs.
I really wouldn’t mind — IF they admitted it was their problem. I do object to being blatantly lied to though, especially when we’re paying for a service contract!
Ooh. Actually, look on the back panel when it boots…you should have 4 LEDs marked a,b,c,d. Note the colours of each when it fails, and look it up or e-mail me with the codes and your service tag, and I’ll have a poke around Dells site..
in fact…if you haven’t done so already…
Dell Troubleshooter for Dimension 5150
Dell Dimension 5150 “Loading PBR issue”
Oh boy. This is a hard drive problem. PBR stands for Partition Boot Record and it’s where the hardware looks when handing control over to the operating system.
Either your hard disk is toast (which I doubt since when it does boot you have access to all your stuff) or you simply have a corrupt PBR.
Assuming you have only one partition:
The PBR is synonymous with the MBR, so you can either pop in your Windows CD, boot to comman prompt and use the FIXMBR command, rewrite the MBR yourself using DISKPART (but I wouldn’t recommend this unless you know what you’re doing!). Otherwise you have to get all old-school and boot using a diskette or CD with FDISK on it and type “fdisk /mbr”.
before doing so, check the moderation entry with the URLS direct to the dell tech posts..just for troubleshootings sake. Seems quite common..
Thank you in advance to Karl and Lew
…
I’ll have a read of all the links/advice you’ve given and then form some sort of “Plan of Action”.
I heard back from Dell at the crack of dawn this morning (bastard Indian call-centre in bloody Bangalore no less :roll: ) and arranged for them to call back at midday. I sat for over an hour at my computer, waiting for them to call and troubleshoot… They didn’t. I had to go out and so turned my phone off — I got a voicemail over 4 hours after the time we’d agreed…
This is a fucking saga now. If I don’t get anywhere with Dell tomorrow and if I don’t think it is something I can fix myself, I’ll have to pay someone to fix it for me. Why is nothing ever simple?
ah..the call centres..yes. I always hang up if I get put through to a non-english person, or ask to be transferred back to the original point of contact to explain that my day is short, my patience shorter and no, I don’t believe the person identified as “Dave” is british — my arse he is, put me through to anyone english/irish or I’ll damned well escalate the call..:)
Usually works. They tend to call me back ASAP because they know full well that T&W council is a big contract.
The “troubleshoot” will just be a load of damnfool questions..if I ever hear “did you check the power unit was connected”, “are you sure no indicator lights are on” again…I told the guy I’d hunt him down and remove his ability to extend his family tree.
Do the online troubleshooter, then tell them that you’ve followed all steps on it, that might cut down on the silliness.
If you were anywhere near here, I’d say “drop it in”, but Telford is nowhere near.
If you want any help, my work e-mail is on this comment.
have you tried starting it with all things USB unplugged, scanner/printer included (if they’re usb)? Might be a silly question.
If it helps, my Windows XP HDD expired between power down last night, and power up this morning. “No boot sector on device, please insert boot disk”.
Boohoo. Twas a 20gb 6 year old “spare” drive, so I intend to take it out and shoot it, then buy another. For now, I have Ubuntu.
Many thanks for the point of contact Karl — its very much appreciated, trust me if Telford was closer, I’d be asking what the going rate was for your services. Dell are a joke. The fiasco started monday morning, its now wednesday night and I’m no closer to even troubleshooting.
I Emailed the guy dealing with my case last night giving him details as to when to call me today. 4 and a half hours I sat waiting for him to call and troubleshoot the poxy thing… Did he call? My bloody arse he did.
I switched off my phone at 1PM as I had to go and pick up my new wheelchair and have it adjusted and fitted (which to my mind is far more important than waiting for the cowboy to call). There was no sense keeping the phone on because even if he did call after 1 PM, it would’ve been useless as I was half way up the M11…
I got an Email at quarter past 2 say that he hadn’t phoned me because he’d been in “training” (and he couldn’t have mentioned that yesterday or first thing this morning?!) and that all he was getting from my number now was voicemail. (Yes mate, that’s cuz you’re over an hour late… What, you expect me to perch by inoperative machinery ALL DAY just incase you call??)
I am this close to telling this lot where to poke it and getting a quote from the Computing Engineer that sorts out the Dells for the company where my family works… This really isn’t even funny anymore, its just a piss take. :[
Nope, not a sausage…unplugged all USB (except keyboard as that throws up a “no keyboard” error and all I get is:
drive 0 not found: Serial ATA, SATA-0Strike f1 to continue, f2 to run setup utility
and other similar errors… Yet another day not getting anywhere with Dell…my sister is seeing the tech at her workplace tomorrow…Fingers crossed he has a clue.
nightmare…I’ve got a laptop that’d died on my table…I can recover all the owners data, but the laptop itself (1.4 Athlon) is a paperweight due to a failed motherboard. I’ll call him tomorrow to give the bad news.
Sigh. On the other hand, I’ve found a cheap source of new keyboards for my old Dell Inspiron, along with a cheap ram upgrade and a cheap 40gb hard disk. None of the parts are from Dell..they wanted over the ton for a keyboard.
While I have my reservations now about Dell, this Inspiron 3800 is bulletproof.
Eeeep — and this is exactly why I grabbed the shop floor unit of the last Apple iBook.
2yrs on and all that’s wrong is a dying battery and some monitor flicker. Sorry!
Btw, really nice site. I’ve been lurking for month and thought I’d say hi!
I’m so sorry — I remember how excited you were. I hope you get a quick and speedy solution to this.
V xx
Someone who has time on there hands may want to take a survay and send the results to Dell or even the attorney general or some law enforcent agency.
I was surfing when it happened to me.I had no security warnings or any thing.I not sure what sight it was it was quite awhile a go. I do know it was a sight sugested by Yorgoo. Im not saying Yorgoo had anything to do with the problem but but my experience was very similar to what has been mentioned. I did get the wobly blue screen the i lost control of the computer.
I panicked and unplugged my
I had a similar experience. In the end my computer screen said loading PBR for descriptor 1…done.
Bad PBR.
The problem occured while I was surfing for points for Yorgoo follwoing directions as suggested by Yorgoo to earn free advertising points. Im not sure what sight I was surfin when it happened.My computer changed screens and went blue then started wobbling. I panicked and unplugged my computer.
When I turned it on the Dell Logo came up as normal but after it was finished booting up the was a message that said
Loading PBR for descriptor 1…done.
Bad PBR.
Does anyone know how to repair this problem.
Also about a month prior to this problem. My Phillips CD-DVD player that came with the system stopped working.
At first it would light up at restart ot when turned on but it would not open. I got it open by using a paper clip in the acces whole in front and put in a disk .The disk did not respond when I tried to run it. I tried troubleshooting
At the risk of making you look a ninny (which is not my intention!) we do indeed have an attorney general in this country, Lord Goldsmith. He works with the Solictor General in interpretting the law.
Hope all goes well with Dell, failing that I can hold your hand through a windows reinstall.
WTF? Is that spam or an attempt at constructive contribution?
I think involving law (or indeed an Attorney General
, as that would involve me contacting people overseas as we don’t have those in the UK) is a tad over-zealous, to say the least.The fact is, my harddrive was toast and is now being replaced. Yes, I had to endure Indian Call Centres and a subsequent communication problem, but so far, it is all in the process of being successfully resolved.
Sounds like the best thing you could do is call Dell if your machine is under warranty, or if it isn’t, make alternative arrangements. Or, just learn to submit comments when you’ve actually finished making your point, so that they make sense.
Really? Wow, I never knew that… Learn something new everyday, as they say.
Fair enough, I stand corrected. Though even based on that, I still think contacting him would be OTT.
Well, I should be getting my computer back soon, so hopefully all will be well. But thank you very much for the offer Lew, I’ll keep you in mind if it all goes tits up!