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Hard Drive Not Recognised
Posted on 2011-03-04
I have a Toshiba Satellite P300-160 notebook running Vista HP. When turned on I can access the BIOS and the hard drive shows up and is set as bootable. However, exiting the BIOS nothing whatsoever appears on the screen after that. I can't even use PC-Check as the same blank screen appears.
I can run PC-Check with the hard drive removed and have tested everything else with it and no problems are reported.
I have removed the drive and can access it in another machine without problem. I have run HD Tune, Easy Recovery and Chkdsk, all without anything turning up.
Installing a new hard drive into the Toshiba everything boots as it should. I'm guessing that I will have to replace the drive but is there anything I have missed here that I could try?
I can run PC-Check with the hard drive removed and have tested everything else with it and no problems are reported.
I have removed the drive and can access it in another machine without problem. I have run HD Tune, Easy Recovery and Chkdsk, all without anything turning up.
Installing a new hard drive into the Toshiba everything boots as it should. I'm guessing that I will have to replace the drive but is there anything I have missed here that I could try?
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16 Comments
That's the thing, if the hard drive is in place I can't boot from a DVD, or even a USB pen, come to that. The screen remains blank..
have you formatted this Hard drive in another machine?
Is your boot order in the BIOS correct? It does not maybe have the HD as the 1st boot device?
Is your boot order in the BIOS correct? It does not maybe have the HD as the 1st boot device?
In the bios, is the HD set to Sata or AHCI? This "shouldn't" cause an issue like you are experiencing, but changing this might cause it to boot at least to a point where you can troubleshoot/make changes such as mbr /fixboot
If you can access the drive when it's attached to a different system, then the drive itself is probably ok - it's just the boot record. You can repair that by booting to a Vista install DVD. There should be a key sequence - usually just tap <F12> as you power up - to access the boot menu (so you can boot to DVD instead of the HDD).
I can't boot using key combination while the hard drive is installed in the Toshiba. However, it is possible to boot with a disk in another computer then switch to that drive and then run bootrec.exe /fixboot and fixmbr. However, there is still no sign of anything on the Toshiba screen when I replace the disk.
I'll give the Sata/AHCI option a go shortly...
I'll give the Sata/AHCI option a go shortly...
I've just tried the AHCI/COMPATIBILITY option and it makes no difference.
Also, I should have said that I can bring up the boot options using F12 and the hard drive appears as it should, along with the cd and usb, etc options. However, selecting any of these options just brings up the blank screen again...
Also, I should have said that I can bring up the boot options using F12 and the hard drive appears as it should, along with the cd and usb, etc options. However, selecting any of these options just brings up the blank screen again...
I've never tried this, but in theory it should work, if the MBR is really what is causing the issue. pull the HD, put it in a usb hard drive enclosure of some type. Boot a live ubuntu cd and run the fix boot command on the now usb drive.
http://www.arsgeek.com/2008/01/15/how-to-fix-your-windows-mbr-with-an-ubuntu-livecd/
http://www.arsgeek.com/2008/01/15/how-to-fix-your-windows-mbr-with-an-ubuntu-livecd/
Yes, another disk starts to boot ok. Regarding the second point I've already written another boot sector as mentioned above..
I have tried using Acronis to clone the whole drive to a new hard drive. It completed successfully but the result was exactly the same, no display beyond the manufacturer's logo screen then just blank.
I have now wiped the drive and that has at least allowed me to start reinstalling Vista as normal. Looks like I'll just have to update things and copy the backed up data back manually...
I have now wiped the drive and that has at least allowed me to start reinstalling Vista as normal. Looks like I'll just have to update things and copy the backed up data back manually...
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>> It completed successfully but the result was exactly the same << that's normal - because it is identical...
what exactly do you want to do now, since you said another disk boots fine?
what exactly do you want to do now, since you said another disk boots fine?
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