Dell inspiron 1545 Laptop computer is getting BSOD on boot, when first ran diagnostics got error: Hard Drive - DST Test Results - Fail Error Code 2000-0142 Msg Hard Drive 0 - self test unsuccessful status 79. Dell's website advised to remove hard drive and re-install which I did. Now get error 2000-0146 which says previous errors in log but it still won't start. This is my step-daughter's computer. She let antivirus expire so in all likelihood is a virus but I have no idea what to do now. It's out of warranty.

The drive is bad and will only get worse.
Momentus 250GB 5,400 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Hard Drive ST90250N1A1AS-RK $50

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By your memory from www.crucial.com where they garuantee their memory to work.

Hard drive has bad sectors. Before your replace your hard drive when getting this error, try this- Boot from a Windows XP CD and choose Repair at the first prompt to get the recovery console. Type "chkdsk c: /p/r" at the prompt. Repeat until there are no errors found. Exit and reboot. It worked for me.

Hi
It seems that the Hard Disk is disconnected from it's connectors
It needs to be fixed and installed correctly.
To do that, there are screws in the back, remove them and disconnect the hard disk, and reconnect, fix it correctly.
If it's difficult to you, go to technician to do that.

Please, Tell us your results.
Good Luck

The problem is either the Hard drive has failed and needs replacement or the hard drive is operational but it lost the OS. (Operating System). If the OS is gone, you need to re-install it again..

screen display on my
Dell Inspiron 1545 with MS XP OS-
Then I ran diagnostics and got this
result- "DST short Test-Failed-Error
code-2000-0151 Error message:
Hard Drive 1-incorrect staus 3E. Please help fix this problem. Thanks

Your dell seems to have a bad hard drive. The "DST" is a Drive Self Test. This test determines whether or not your drive can start up and read and write. When you have this failure you can sometimes recover some of the data but you probably will not be able to boot the computer if you have not been able to do so thus far. If your dell is still under warranty I would recommend that you call dell and see if you can get it replaced.

If you do not know if your dell is under warranty you can get on another computer and open your internet browser and navigate to http://support.dell.com.

Click on (Start Here) under "Support for Home Users"
On the top right hand side of the of the page hover over "Warranty Information" and click on "Warranty Status"

On that page you want to enter in your Service Tag. That can be located on the bottom of your laptop usually on a white or black sticker.

Once you find out if your laptop is under warranty you can call dells support line to see if you can get it repaired. You may need to provide the error code to them in order to get a replacement.

Code 0146 is hard drive read/write failure.

Replace the hard disk drive

It means "DST Log contains previous error(s)."
Dell Support says “If the diagnostic test reports one of the above errors, refer to Dell Troubleshooting Wizard: "Hard Drive Fails the Diagnostics" Wizard ID: 324398”

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/tree?journalid=79E54961218510CBE040AE0AB5E158B6&treeid=324398

ALWAYS CHECK THE WARRANTY BEFORE DOING IT YOURSELF
If this is a Dell computer , it indicates a hard drive failure. if so here is the solution:
Look at the bios and see if the hard drive is detected.
To get to the BIOS, when you turn on the system, you will be confronted with a black screen with the dell symbol in the middle, if you look at the top left of the screen, you should see something like
Press F2 for boot options
Press F12 for setup
Keep tapping the F2 or F12 key for boot options. this will take you into the BIOS.
Check also that it says enabled
Next see if you can boot the dell diagnostics partition. {F12}, then select diagnostics, once you have the diagnostics available run the memory tests and the hard drive test.
you should get a report when it finishes looking something like this:
DST Short Test: Failed
Error Code: 1000-0146
Msg: Unit 2 : DST LOC Contains previous error(s)

READ TEST:
0F00: 0244
MSG Block: 57301297

VERIFY TEST:
0F00:1A44
MSG Block: 57301297
if there are more than two errors ide suggest a new hard drive. BUT TO SAVE YOUR DATA BEFORE ------>Do you have anything important? if you do, you will need to do a repair install of XP and get your files before the hard drive fails completely. Use the service tag to obtain full specs of the computer at dells website. This hard drive has previous errors, and has generated new ones. It looks like it is getting ready to fail. You may be able to use a xp disk to perform an operating system repair, the dell operating system CD will do this also. Here is a link: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm If you follow the directions exactly, you will not lose any files. Please continue to post about this issue, and operate this computer as little as possible.