The computer: Dell XPS 15 running Windows 7
In early December, one of the built-in diagnostics found that the hard drive failed a "SMART short self test" and a "targeted read test", which meant that failure was imminent.
I'm still under warranty, so I got it promptly replaced by in-home service, successfully reimaged, and life proceeded as normal. I cheerfully chalked this up to my standard "Dell saves my ass with a major repair just before the warranty expires" narrative that's happened with every computer I've owned, and carried on with life.
Two days later, I booted up and it said it couldn't find the operating system. I freaked out and called tech support, and during one of the reboots that happened while they were running me through diagnostics, Windows suddenly booted up normally.
Over the next several days, this happened every time I booted up. BIOS wouldn't find the operating system on the hard drive the first time or two (or three or six), but then it would find it for no discernable reason. And after it did find it and boot up Windows, everything would proceed beautifully.
Over the course of several days, on the phone with a Dell rep whom I've spoken to more than any other human being this month, we ran every diagnostic in the book, repaired the boot sector, reinstalled Windows a couple of times, and manipulated all the potentially-relevant BIOS settings. The problem still persisted. Boot-up failed more often than not, but once it succeeded everything worked normally.
From a technological standpoint, this problem would occur somewhere in the connection between the hard drive and the motherboard. So, finally, they had a tech come in (with the beautiful in-home warranty service I paid a premium for when I bought my computer) and replace my motherboard and my hard drive. I reinstalled Windows, booted up successfully a couple of times, reimaged, and got on with life.
But then, the next morning, the problem reoccurred again! BIOS didn't recognize that there was an operating system on the hard drive, despite the fact that literally everything that might be contributing to this problem had been replaced!
So now they tell me that the only choice is to send it in to the depot, which would leave me without a computer for a total of 7 to 10 business days. This makes me very sad. My computer is central to my social life, play and creativity (fortunately I have another for my work), and is the absolute core of my happy place and self-care. The idea of being without a computer for 2 weeks is a grey cloud lurking over my head. I literally feel like there's something ominous standing behind me. I told the tech (and he agreed) that I don't want to send it out before January so it doesn't incur further delays what with all the statutory holidays this time of year, but even though I get to enjoy my computer during this difficult holiday period, I'm still feeling impending dread about the prospect of 2 weeks without it.
I understand from a diagnostic perspective why they'd want to look at it in person in a depot (I found myself thinking during this process that it would be faster if I could just take it in somewhere and sit down with a tech at a workbench who had a lot of different tools and components and just try stuff out), but it's just disheartening to have to be without a computer for so long when I've already paid a premium for a warranty that includes on-site service.
There's one factor in all this that we haven't been able to test or rule out: the brand of the hard drive. Both replacement hard drives that the BIOS doesn't reliably recognize have been Western Digital (which was also the brand of the external hard drive I used to own that was giving me problems.) The previous drive (which never once had this problem) was Samsung. When I googled around the problem of the BIOS sometimes not recognizing that the hard drive has an operating system, I found Western Digital hard drives were disproportionately represented. But it seems like Dell, like most large companies, buys equipment in bulk, so they have no mechanism for providing me with a different brand of hard drive. I don't know if the depot would be able to do this either.
So that's my current emotional crisis. If you've ever successfully solved this problem of BIOS sporadically not recognizing the operating system on a hard drive, I'd love to hear in the comments how you solved it! If your answer is going to be to buy a different type of computer, please save it for my upcoming post contemplating the purchase of my next computer.
Update: After two attempts at depot repair, Dell finally installed a Samsung brand drive, which, just as I suspected, made the problem go away.
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