#1 -07 Fail New Hard Drive

[Shelly Saunders]

The hard drive of my Pavilion dv2535 was playing up for a while then failed completely. The diagnostics Hard Drive Self Test returned an error #1 -07 Fail. So I bought a new hard drive, ran the diagnostics and the brand new hard drive reports the same error message.
Windows XP and Vista install discs report that there is no hard drive but Knoppix can see it without any problem at all. It can even format it and create a MBR. So what can be wrong?

[Bobby Sledge]

What brand of hard drive? Have you run the manufacturers diagnostic utility on the drive?

[Shelly Saunders]

Its a Western Digital SATA 160GB drive. The disk diagnostics are clean. I have been able to create a partition on it with FDISK and format it as FAT32 using my Ulimate Boot CD. As I say, its brand new.
However the BIOS disgnostics still report the same #1-07 Fail error.
I'm wondering if the XP install fails because it doesn't have any SATA drivers. The error message is "Setup did not find any hard disk drives"
Vista install just bombs once its loaded its initial files and reaches its first screen
Thanks for your help

[Ron N.]

Hi,
Cannot help you with your issue, but it is nice to see someone else using Knoppix. I have rescued photos from so called dead hard drives with it. Slax is also another good live CD. Ubuntu cannot see things as well as the other two.

Right now on my bench, I have an 80gig 2.5 HD that reports it is 40 gig. I have removed the partition and recreated it with Acronis and GParted. No change. Used X-ways forensic tool to zero it out, still no dice. Right now I am using Dariks Boot and Nuke to zero it again. It is reporting that it will take 20 hours!!

Oh yes, I also wiped it with a forensic hardware device.

Weird things can happen to HDs.

Good luck and let us know how it plays out. I am curious.
Packrat1947

[Gordon W. Smith]

I ran into a ze2000 with same error. Tried all the utilities and different drives etc. with no response. As a last resort I started disassembling the unit and upon removing the cover for the WLAN card I found one of the antenna cables was off and it was in general area of the IDE connector. I reseated the antenna cable to the card and reassembled the unit. Powered up and Windows XP detected the hard drive and installed successfully. I'm not familiar with the layout of your model but if it is similar to the ze2000, then try removing the memory door and the cover for the WLAN card.

Thanks,
gws

[J. Alec West]

I got hard disk errors according to the online diagnostics. And in chat, an HP rep told me to do the self-test via BIOS. And, on that test, I got the same "#1- 07 FAIL" message.

My system is a Pavilion 8408us. However, rather than go back to HP chat with this, I decided to take the offensive.

My laptop's hard drive was a Seagate. So, I went to their site and downloaded their SeaTools utility. It's an ISO file you burn to a CD - then boot with it. SeaTools runs a quick test, followed by a long test, followed by an attempt to repair any errors it finds. The test found five errors ... and in less than a minute, repaired all five. Afterward, I went back to BIOS and retested - and it passed quick test, comprehensive test, and SMART test with flying colors.

Point is, many hard disk errors can be repaired. Even if you can no longer log onto your computer, a geek shop can run an error fixer utility on your hard drive.

BUT...

If you can still log onto your computer, find out what hard drive brand you're using and visit their site. Most manufacturers have similar utilities to SeaTools. If they don't, and you don't already have the tool installed, visit the Symantec site and download a trial version of Norton Utilities which can do the same search/repair functions:

http://www.symantec.com/norton/downloads/trialsoftware/offer.jsp?pvid=nu2010