DylanF

Hey guys, thanks again to everyone who's been helping out so far. So here's the update: I ordered a samsung 850 evo ssd and it should be here tomorrow. I also got a cloning kit and it seems, oddly enough, like I can access every file on the old HDD with the exception of the contents of my "users" folders. Trying to open those folders gives me a message stating that I don't have permission to access them. This is the point where I'm stuck at now. It seems like if I could get in, all of my files would be right there. So why in the world couldn't I just get into windows 7 when it was hooked up to the actual computer? Does this sound like some kind of a malware problem? Should I not be trying to extract stuff from the drive for fear of spreading it to the new drive?

Okay so I just want to make sure of some things before doing this (I've never really messed with the computer's innards before). Can I just go out and get a hard drive of the same thickness, plug it in the place where the old HDD was, install windows 7 through a usb, and not have to take any other sort of specifications into consideration?

Update: So after running a diagnostic I got the error: [h=4]"Error 2000-0142 hard drive fail 0 Self test Status 79"[/h]Which I learned is essentially the computer declaring the hard drive dead. I tried booting Windows 7 from a USB to do startup repair on the hard drive in a last ditch effort but it told me there was nothing wrong with the hard drive, which is baffling. Of course, it also told me there were no system restore points on it, which I know to be false unless there really is some damage to the hard drive. I guess at this point my question is: how do I go about trying to salvage anything from the hard drive? There is a TON of valuable stuff on there that I had not yet backed up.

I've tried this, but regardless of whether I tap F8 or hold it I can't seem to get that menu. I just get a loud beeping noise.

I have an incredibly frustrating and seemingly unsolvable issue. Before starting I'll list some specs in case they help: Alienware M15x running Windows 7 Core i7processor 740qm 1.73ghz 6GB of RAM Not sure on graphics card 500GB HDD This morning, I left my computer open for a prolonged period of time. Usually when I do this, the screen simply goes black and then "wakes up" again when I move my mouse or press a key upon returning. This time, nothing would wake it up and it wouldn't go into sleep mode when I closed it. I did a hard shutdown by holding the power button and then when the typical recovery error screen came up I chose the normal boot option. It got to the first "please wait" screen with the spinning ring and just never moved past it.I tried restarting the computer and booting in every single safe mode option. In each of these, it gets past the screen where all of the "command prompt" style lines read out and then it just gets stuck at a black screen with my cursor and/or a spinning blue ring. The only thing it is capable of is going into the BIOS setup where I have no freezing issues. I didn't install any updates or make any changes to the registry before this problem, it just arose seemingly out of nowhere. I've tried a lot of troubleshooting on my own but to no avail. I've tried booting with and without the adapter, with and without the battery. I've tried disabling the wireless network, wired network, and bluetooth receiver from inside BIOS. The HDD is connected properly, everything is housed firmly in place inside the computer. The only other piece of information that might be relevant is that the optical drive hasn't been working for some months, but I don't see why it would suddenly be an issue now. Thank you for any help at all!