Laptop HD failure

[woodchip]

My daughters ASUs laptop will start up but not into windows. She can get into bios but sees nothing about hd's where before she did. Does this mean HD is toast? We pulled the hd out and we're thinking of taking it to best buy to have it tested. Good idea or no? Any other possible causes for laptop to fasil to get into windows?

[Krom]

If it is a SATA hard drive, you could try plugging it into a spare port in a desktop computer and see if it works or not (yes, laptop SATA drives are compatible with desktop computers, they even use the same connectors so no adapters required). I don't know if Best Buy is such a great idea though, they are overly expensive, definitely can't fix a dead hard drive and competent people are few and far in between at outfits like that.

[woodchip]

Thanks Krom. Turns out it is a SATA drive and I could hook it up to my comp. Got into windows and didn't see it listed. Went into bios and it was listed but it said O mb for storage size. This mean HD is dead or something else going on?

[Thenior]

Put your ear up to it when it's running. If you here any strange mechanical sounds (usually repetitive), it's probably ruined. If not, you may be able to buy an identical hard drive, and swap logic boards. I've done that before.

Of course, the last 4 hard drives that died on me made the mechanical sounds.

[Krom]

Lists as 0 MB eh? That's a new one, but probably means its dead. Perhaps trying a low level format or something might get it working again, but the data on it would be gone forever. You could try using speedfan to check the S.M.A.R.T. attributes of the drive which might give you some more info, otherwise there isn't much that can be done about it.

And yeah, rhythmic clicks or sounds like the motor spinning up and down are the easily recognizable sounds of mechanical failure, but from the way you describe it showing up in BIOS it may be a firmware/board failure.

Although buying an identical drive and swapping the boards is not recommended, modern drives use on the fly customizations to the firmware as the drive is running to optimize for the defects/performance of the actual disk media underneath. Basically the drives learn how to work around their own quirks on the fly so the end result is no two drives are actually alike after they have been in use for a little while. If the data on the drive was that important, you'd have to send it to a data recovery service and those are really expensive (talking $500 USD minimum).

[AceCombat]

piriform's "Defraggler" now includes a SMART checker.


0MB is a new one to me aswell.....


Data recovery = arm and leg

[Thenior]

...modern drives use on the fly customizations to the firmware as the drive is running to optimize for the defects/performance of the actual disk media underneath. Basically the drives learn how to work around their own quirks on the fly so the end result is no two drives are actually alike after they have been in use for a little while.

Really? Never knew that...