Solved! Compaq Evo n610c

[swflorida]

I am a fairly new member to Toms Hardware and I am very impressed with the level of expertise from the members and their willingness to reply quickly. I need some suggestions - I was given a Compaq evo n610c a few days ago. Just turned it on today for the first time - booted up fine. I ran a free disk defragmentation progrqam - defragler. It was 29% fragmented. When it got to 99% done, the system hung and the hard drive started making very audible clicking sounds (I assume read/write heads). Just for the heck of it, I booted into safe mode and was told to reinstall system32\hal.dll. I need the cheapest/refurbished/pawned/american pickers/habib's house of hardware/chet's food and grain/ wherever, just need a CHEAP fix. I believe the current configuration is 40GB HD (Multibay) part # 265495-001. Thanks!!

 

[Guest]

This topic has been moved from the section Opinions and Experiences to section Laptops & Notebooks by Grumpy9117

 

[WR2]

Hello swflorida;

[strike]Cheapest[/strike], easiest, fastest fix is probably replace the HDD.

You could try one of the Rescue CDs. A bootable CD with basic utility and tool programs.
SystemRescueCd
(caution: It's NOT windows - check the screenshots)