Re-seat hard drive

I get an error message when turning on my laptop that says I need to try re-seating the hard drive. I have done so many times and it does not fix the problem. The only way to get past it that I have found, is to go into F2 and reload the default boot sequence. That fixes it every time. How might I eradicate this error message and permanently fix my laptop.?

 

On Dell systems, they often use additional sensor technology to detect things they think the user wants to see, know of, or keep tabs on. On the Dell Dimension desktops, they have an "intrusion detection" monitor from the BIOS that can tell you if the case has been modified which can help if you're in an office setting to know if the computer has been physically messed with...but it can be an extreme annoyance when the system won't boot or nags you ever time it does because of the setting on the BIOS to display that message and request you address it by hitting a function key.

Depending on the model of laptop you have, you may be able to toggle on/off the requirement to press the function key on the BIOS and whether or not it checks for a sensor that detects whether the drive is properly seated to its liking or not.

If not, then you can either try to recalibrate the fixtures on the side of the drive to make it agree that the drive is properly seated for you, or you can try removing and replacing the drive with another drive that it doesn't have that problem with, and then try putting the old drive back on there to see if that does the trick for you. Sometimes it does, sometimes not.

It can also be that there is a seek error (misconfiguration on the drive controller, but not fatal error to where it can still read past it), or the drive is going out and making that error happen (not necessarily a S.M.A.R.T. error, but is sending back bad data to the controller to make it think the drive isn't calibrated and seated properly when it really is).

I would check the BIOS first for the sensor technology and turn that off if it's an annoyance or you never use or need it. If it's not there or doing that still has the problem occur, then try the other steps to see if that works. In some weird situations it just doesn't like the drive and will keep doing that. I've had that happen with a few Seagate drives and Hitachi ones, but only rarely with the Western Digital ones. Not that it makes a big difference with this, but it just seems to acknowledge or fit better depending on the model.

Another thing you can do if there's no setting for that but there is a setting for "Halt on Errors", try setting that to not halt on any errors which means it'll still not see it as seated properly, but it won't stop you from booting or require you to press F2 or any other key anymore if it's an option on the BIOS there.