Laptop issue

Dave

Dave

Well-Known Member
Well, I messed things up. Again.
I took the HDD out of the machine that died and put it in her machine to copy files I wanted to save.
When I put the original HDD back in her machine, it wouldn't recognize it. I get a message saying "Operating system not found".
I re-seated the drive a couple of times and I don't see any loose wires. I tried rebooting on battery only and plugged in. Nothing.

Any ideas?
 
Maybe you should borrow an enclosure so you can hook it up via usb. It is also possible that the machine that died didn't go down alone.
 
sounds like you might need to check the bios settings.
maybe reset defaults and try it...
 
Dave said:
I was referring to 2 dead laptops within a week.
Click to expand...

Oh and I thought you were talking about the enclosures.

Anyway, I didn't mean that you ended up with two dead laptops, but rather that the disk that was in the damaged laptop could have suffered some damage as well. Even if you managed to get a backup out of it, it could die afterwards. If you put it in the other computer, does it still work ok? (this should rule out a defective disk).

I agree with cato, check the bios settings, make sure it shows up in the boot devices.
 
The HDD that was in the laptop that died worked fine when I put it in her laptop. Her laptop was working fine before I did that. When I put her HDD back in her machine, it wouldn't boot. I got the HP logo page with the options to press F-keys, then a message that the operating system wasn't found.
I tried putting the HDD from the dead machine back in her machine and got nothing at all.
 
Could also be a corrupted MBR. I've had that problem before. If that's the case, rescuing data is harder if you don't have a backup of the mbr. Especially if the disk was heavily fragmented.
 
Its still in the shop. They think something in the startup got corrupted. They are going to try and save the data on the disc, then reformat and reinstall Vista.
 
The shop just called. Its something they have never seen before.
They tried to reinstall the OS but it still wouldn't boot up. He had a difficult time getting into the BIOS and when he finally did, it only gave him one option. When he chose that, he got garbage on the screen. He has no idea what corrupted the BIOS.
I asked him if it could have been something viral. He snickered and said no.
He was insistent that it wasn't an issue with swapping the HDD.
He was able to back up the photos on the HDD.
Now I have to pile through the past years worth of stuff to find the receipt to see if its still under warranty.
To make matters even better, she has been in a pissy mood all morning and now has someplace specific to direct it. At me.

Gonna be a looooong day.....
 
Just found the receipt.

1 year 16 days today. It died 4 days after the 1 year warranty expired. Can't find the paper work for the extended warranty.

*lengthy string of curse words
 
if the old lappy is no good, don't let um just keep it.
You might get something out of it, selling it for parts.
 
I still have it. Going to take it apart one of these days and see if the BIOS chip is soldered in.

If it is, anyone need some parts for an HP Pavilion laptop?

I ordered one of those HDD USB things that Luis was mentioning. They backed up the wrong HDD for me. Still need to see if the pictures are still there. Then I'll wipe both and have an extra 200GB storage lying around.
 
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