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I have a Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop. It would not start Windows XP or Vista.

I did a diagnostic and it indicated that the hard drive had a problem.
I replaced the hard drive with a Hitachi SATA 320 GB.

I ran the diagnostics again and no problems were found. I ran the original Dell Drivers and Utilities DVD which set up the (3) partitions. I then tried to re-install Vista from the original CD.

It gets part way through the start up and then freezes at exactly the same place every time.

So, I tried to do the same with a Windows XP install disk and a Windows 7 disk.
They all froze before getting to any Windows screen.

  • I updated the BIOS
  • I tried default bios settings
  • I tried changing the SATA operation from AHCI to ATA
  • I tried UBCD which - runs most of the utilities fine but I'm not sure what to do with them.
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  • The new hard drive gets stuck at the same spot as the old hard drive?
    – ctzdev
    May 1, 2011 at 1:05

1 Answer 1

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I would run a memory tester http://www.memtest.org/

Download the prebuilt ISO, burn it to CD as an Image (not data), boot from that CD and run the memory test for a couple of hours or overnight to stress test the memory. If you get errors with this test you have a bad memory module, if you have more than one memory module installed remove all but one and re-run the test, test each module individually until you find the bad one.

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  • I removed one of the 1G memory modules and tried to install windows 7 again, It loads for a minute or two to a point. The "Starting Windows" message appears, then the four balls form the windows icon. The Hard disk led flashes, the Num lock" led goes off then nothing. The dvd continues to spin for another 10 seconds and then stops.
    – Rick M
    May 4, 2011 at 3:56
  • So you did or did Not run the memory tester as suggested?
    – Moab
    May 4, 2011 at 19:49
  • I ran the memory test today. The first three passes were ok. I am leaving it run overnight and I'll check tomorrow.
    – Rick M
    May 6, 2011 at 2:55
  • The memory test ran for 15 hours, 20 passes, 0 errors.
    – Rick M
    May 6, 2011 at 14:40
  • How long did you let it set after it stalled while trying to install?
    – Moab
    May 6, 2011 at 16:34

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