that doesn't sound like a drive issue to me...
Posted on 08/30/2012 5:39:10 PM PDT by melissa_in_ga
Sorry for the vanity...my hubby's laptop went kaput the other day. Simply won't boot. Black screen, cursor at top blinks. It's a Toshiba, with very few gizmos added on.
I have about five laptops in various states of disrepair, but none of them are hard drive issues. Can I swap out a hard drive and get him going again? I'm tired of him using mine.
that doesn't sound like a drive issue to me...
hmm... check the power supply
Swapping out hard drives may cause problems with the drivers (ddl’s), unless the computers are the same makes.
You might be able to get it started, if you have a disk with the appropriate drivers for the machine being booted.
That is what mine did when the HD went wonky. I installed a new HD and then it would boot.
But you will need an operating system to install on the HD. Do you have the discs that came with the laptop?
I did not have the disks, so I downloaded a copy of Linux off the net and am using that.
It is hard drive problem...the boot sector is corrupted. You’re going to need to get a scan disk type of program to fix the error on the boot sector.
Before ripping organs out of the body consider downloading a self-contained OS that boots/runs from DVD or CD - e.g. http://knoppix.net
Burn the disc on a working machine and attempt to boot from the disc (you may need to hit a hotkey during/after the BIOS screen appearance). If the disc-based OS boots successfully then you can almost certainly point to hard disk failure or at least OS corruption on the hard disk.
Before ripping organs out of the body consider downloading a self-contained OS that boots/runs from DVD or CD - e.g. http://knoppix.net
Burn the disc on a working machine and attempt to boot from the disc (you may need to hit a hotkey during/after the BIOS screen appearance). If the disc-based OS boots successfully then you can almost certainly point to hard disk failure or at least OS corruption on the hard disk.
If you mean plug the drive from one laptop directly into another laptop the answer is....maybe. If the two machines are of a similar design it might boot in the other machine. The odds are against it however.
If you mean using the drive out of one and reprogramming it (reinstalling the operating system and all the programs) the answer is probably (they still need to be the same type of drive although they can be different manufacturers and sizes).
It can be done but can also be a colossal PITA if one doesn’t know what one is doing ;-)
Sure, try swapping out the hard drive. Does it POST before going to the blinking cursor? That is, do you see text on the screen imploring you to press a button for boot or change setup settings? If not, you have deeper troubles than the hard drive.
Thanks, guys. This is the only Toshiba in the house. All others are Compaq/HP, so if it was one of those, I’d have better luck with the dll’s, etc.
I’ll download a clean copy of knoppix on my computer and see if I can boot up his and update the bios, etc. If I can’t...it’s a trip to my local Best Buy.
The Knoppix suggestion is also a good one. I did that to verify the rest of the laptop was in working order.
BTW, download the English version, else it is in German. You can specify a different language at boot if you do end up with the German version, though.
but she should be able to get to the CMOS and this sounds like it fails before it gets that far...
No, no capability to go to bios or safe mode.
If you can’t hit BIOS, then I can’t imagine a hard drive will change anything. You should be able to POST and enter BIOS without any external storage devices attached.
Power supply is fine; it simply goes to black screen and blinking cursor.
unplug the hd. see if the bios comes up
If that has no change, unplug one memory card, hd still unplugged
I’m sorry, but that’s more likely a main board or CPU issue. Even no RAM or bad RAM should POST. Could also be a power issue like another poster intuited.
Power supply is fine; it simply goes to black screen and blinking cursor.
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