No physical memory is available ...

Orion

at the location required for the Windows Boot Manager. The system cannot continue.

My sis-in-law was getting this regularly. I thought it was W7Home sleep mode causing it so I disabled it. Still getting it I made the call to go big bang and wipe and reinstall (no data on the drive that she needs apart from some photos which I got on to a usb drive).

W7 boot dvd - wiped all partitions including the Dell recovery one and another system one (assume the hibernation partition). Created new partition and started the install. It got the to the stage of expanding all install files, rebooted and then gave the same error again. Now even trying to boot from the DVD gives the same error.

Tried the Hirens CD - it loads but none of the apps will. Tried a DBAN boot CD - sits at a flashing cursor for a minute then the same error.

BIOS diags all pass.

Any ideas? It's a Dell Inspiron N5110.

whizbang

sounds like its trying to boot from a read-only partition. Try a partition manager to see if there are any partitions still left over

Orion

That's the problem - I can't. I've tried Hirens to use gparted and/or dban but neither will load. I did delete all partitions as part of the initial W7 reinstall and now I'm stuck with this.

whizbang

I presume its has not got an SSD. try removing the drive, go into bios and make sure no drive is listed, save settings.
Then replace drive, rescan drives in bios, save again. also try reset defaults in bios.

after that i'd be suspicious of the HDD itself.

Orion

Not an ssd. I already started removing the drive to try one from another laptop - have a look at the service manual! After removing the module cover and ejecting the optical; removing the keyboard; removing the palmrest; unhooking the touchpad, power and hotkey cables; I stopped before removing the display assembly and system board. It's just too late and I'm too tired. I've slotted it all back together for another night. What fcuking genius decided you have to strip an entire laptop just to get at the hard drive - the most likely item to fail!

To save you reading the whole thing here's the hard drive



Yep - it's screwed to the underside of the motherboard!

yoyo

Orion wrote: »

Not an ssd. I already started removing the drive to try one from another laptop - have a look at the service manual! After removing the module cover and ejecting the optical; removing the keyboard; removing the palmrest; unhooking the touchpad, power and hotkey cables; I stopped before removing the display assembly and system board. It's just too late and I'm too tired. I've slotted it all back together for another night. What fcuking genius decided you have to strip an entire laptop just to get at the hard drive - the most likely item to fail!

To save you reading the whole thing here's the hard drive



Yep - it's screwed to the underside of the motherboard!

Is this a netbook out of interest? Absolutely unbelievable how awkward they made that to get at the hard disk, you would wonder why.. Thats one of the worst I've seen so far, with iMacs being another contender..

Nick

Orion

yoyo wrote: »

Is this a netbook out of interest? Absolutely unbelievable how awkward they made that to get at the hard disk, you would wonder why.. Thats one of the worst I've seen so far, with iMacs being another contender..

Nick

Nope. Big standard laptop

Torqay

The new DELL laptops are a pain in the behind. Had to replace a broken hard drive in one of these. What used to be a 3 minutes job now takes an hour as you'll have to take the whole laptop apart and put it back together.

And this company used to build the most maintenance-friendly computers... idiots.

riclad

I Restored ,win 7 on my laptop,from the recovery partition,
takes about 2oinutes.
I cannot see any reason to delete recovery partition,its only about 20gig.
try,livecd, dsl,http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
install on main partition, OR get live cd mint linux,32bit, fits on one cd ,version 9.
YOU can load, gparted from a 1gig usb key, or install ubuntu from a usb key.
THEN make a partition drive c ,60gig,then try a win7 install again, format, c, in ntfs format.http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php

See
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=52
i,ve never seen a laptop that would not allow mint install, try livecd
first,it has browser, music player, needs 5gig space for its own partition approx.
Maybe one ram chip ,is not working,stopping the install process from completing.
see
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/744
dsl should work on even a laptop with 256meg ram.
You may need to go to setup,bios,
set boot device =0,first boot= cd/dvd or firstboot= usb device.
Maybe the win7 dvd is scratched, its possible to fix a scratched dvd

No physical memory may indicate drive c;\ was full, or a faulty ram chip.

riclad

See his,http://www.ranish.com/part/
its included on this,
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

The new DELL laptops are a pain in the behind. Had to replace a broken hard drive in one of these. What used to be a 3 minutes job now takes an hour as you'll have to take the whole laptop apart and put it back together.

And this company used to build the most maintenance-friendly computers... idiots.

Absolutely ridiculous carry on, then again people want everything smaller nowadays so I suppose this is one of the many "trade offs"

Nick

Torqay

yoyo wrote: »

Absolutely ridiculous carry on, then again people want everything smaller nowadays so I suppose this is one of the many "trade offs"

Nick

They could have cut a hole in the bottom of the case and closed it with a service hatch, there's one for the memory modules right next to the HDD.

GreenWolfe

As an aside, the HDD failed on my N5110 twice already, I'm not looking forward to the warranty expiring. The cost of a new HDD I could take, but not the disassembly procedure.

It's a full sized 15" laptop, the location of the HDD makes no sense whatsoever. I'm at a loss for what to suggest to the OP, memory test maybe?

yoyo

Torqay wrote: »

They could have cut a hole in the bottom of the case and closed it with a service hatch, there's one for the memory modules right next to the HDD.

But I suppose that would be too logical . I have noticed with some netbooks you have to pop the keyboard to gain access to the HDD which is fair enough I guess, as if you have a memory hatch there wouldn't be room for a 2.5" HDD one. But this appears to be a proper size laptop which is quite bizarre. Another bizarre thing I have come across is only one of the memory banks is accessible from the hatch, with another under the keyboard, why? .
Won't be reccomending Dell again anytime soon if this is their new way.

As an aside, the HDD failed on my N5110 twice already, I'm not looking forward to the warranty expiring. The cost of a new HDD I could take, but not the disassembly procedure.

It's a full sized 15" laptop, the location of the HDD makes no sense whatsoever. I'm at a loss for what to suggest to the OP, memory test maybe?

It is absolutely ridiculous, particularly as hard drives do fail quite a bit, particularly in laptops where they get the odd bash or fall here and there .What is also bizarre is for the companies their engineers must do much more work just to fix a simple issue. It may work for the likes of Apple who just send on a refurb to the customer when they send in a faulty machine (I think?) but Dell do fix the computers, even in your own house depending on your support package. It really is just bizarre..

Nick

riclad

IF its a full size laptop , i don,t understand why drive cant be at lower underside of unit, like in 90 per cent of laptops.I wont buy a laptop, unless battery,and hardrive can be easily removed,and replaced.
IF this trend goes on, we may end up ,having to go to a technician to get a hardrive replaced ,in the future.

Orion

riclad wrote: »

I Restored ,win 7 on my laptop,from the recovery partition,
takes about 2oinutes.
I cannot see any reason to delete recovery partition,its only about 20gig.
try,livecd, dsl,http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
install on main partition, OR get live cd mint linux,32bit, fits on one cd ,version 9.
YOU can load, gparted from a 1gig usb key, or install ubuntu from a usb key.
THEN make a partition drive c ,60gig,then try a win7 install again, format, c, in ntfs format.http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php

See
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=52
i,ve never seen a laptop that would not allow mint install, try livecd
first,it has browser, music player, needs 5gig space for its own partition approx.
Maybe one ram chip ,is not working,stopping the install process from completing.
see
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/744
dsl should work on even a laptop with 256meg ram.
You may need to go to setup,bios,
set boot device =0,first boot= cd/dvd or firstboot= usb device.
Maybe the win7 dvd is scratched, its possible to fix a scratched dvd

No physical memory may indicate drive c;\ was full, or a faulty ram chip.

I deleted the recovery partition because I want the space back and I'll never use it - I'm installing a different version of Windows even apart from never wanting all the crap Dell install in the OEM version.

You missed the part that I booted from the Hirens CD - it's either Puppy or DSL - can't remember which. It loads. But none of the tiny command line apps will. I also tried a Ubuntu disk. All the disks are known good ones but just to be sure I burned second copies and tested them on another machine. I've used Mint before (not a fan btw) - I am a Linux user on my own PC and laptop and media centre. I should state that I'm not a newb to PC maintenance - I generally build my own rigs and I'm a Windows server admin by trade. I've tried all the obvious stuff - it's the not so obvious I'm looking for now

Tomorrow or the next day I'll swap in another hard drive but I'm not 100% convinced that this is hardware related. I'm certain there's a damn hidden partition that Dell have on the hard drive. On a previous laptop I wiped all partitions and installed Ubuntu and every now and again it would boot into a Dell recovery mode - never did figure that out. I'm sure this is something similar if I can just get gparted or dban to load that will certainly take care of that theory.

riclad

No ,i didnt miss the part re,booting, dsl linux ,takes up less memory, it may boot up.OR gparted may boot up from a usbkey.
On my laptop, theres 2 invisible partition, s,
Recovery part, 8.3gb, ntfs, System reserved,partitition 100megabyte.ntfs.primary partition,
THESE 2 partitions, are only visible,in control panel,management,Storage,
my computer shows, drive c.;/ 230gig ntfs, ,
drive d;/ dvdrom drive.
THERE maybe a dell recovery menu that boots, but it does nothing if you deleted the recovery partition.Anyway gparted can see any partition.
go TO dell uk,support, your model, download,the laptop ,manual,
You,ll probably need to download the drivers,windows install may not get em all.
I,M Not saying mint is great, i,ve never found a pc or laptop ,that wont load it from cdr,into memory.
its a good testing tool,
if it doesnt load ,that means theres a hardware problem , probably bad ram chip.
I,VE never seen any laptop, with more than 2 hidden partitions,
if its less than 2 years old its still under warranty.
google your laptop,model no, recovery partition, for more info re disk layout.
You might be 90 per cent thru a windows install, and it stops, because of a bad dvdrom,
scratch on the dvd.