I just dropped my laptop on the floor :s

Red Sleeping Beauty

I can't believe it, I'm such a moron, I just fell off the bed while trying to place my laptop (that was on and running) onto a table. It more slid off slowly than fell, distance from the ground is maybe 2foot and I kinda still had hold of it . The lid was closed and is was the side that hit the floor (not the CD/DVD R side)

Everything seems to be running fine, it was a huge fall but I'm a bit worried.
I've dropped a laptop before off such a height, it seemed fine, then I restarted and it didn't start up. Dead.

Anyway, is there anything I can check to see if I've damaged anything before I turn it off ?

It's a Compaq Presario v6000. It's insured , I actually just got it back from repair less than a month ago.
I am kicking myself for this!!


Any help's appreciated.

petes

Can you try checking any of the ports on the the side that it fell usb etc

You probably already did this though. Any strange rattling noises since it fell?

Red Sleeping Beauty

No rattling noises, USBs are working grand
It's just I remember someone telling me something about the pins of the hard drive jamming into it and killing it.It was really a bad fall, it didn't bounce but I'm a tad worried shall we say as I've a fair bit of stuff not backed up

R3al

alan dunne 27 wrote: »

No rattling noises, USBs are working grand
It's just I remember someone telling me something about the pins of the hard drive jamming into it and killing it.It was really a bad fall, it didn't bounce but I'm a tad worried shall we say as I've a fair bit of stuff not backed up

If you have had the problem before where it would not start up after a reboot, you should back up all your data straight away, if you have any diagnostic utilities on your pc you can run these to see if any issues are present.

Umiq88

Just back up your harddrive i wouldnt be worried about other stuff i've dropped my laptop loads they're quite robust

Red Sleeping Beauty

R3al wrote: »

If you have had the problem before where it would not start up after a reboot, you should back up all your data straight away, if you have any diagnostic utilities on your pc you can run these to see if any issues are present.

psittacosis wrote: »

Just back up your harddrive i wouldnt be worried about other stuff i've dropped my laptop loads they're quite robust

I've dropped the same laptop before , I fell asleep with headphones in one night then I woke up (sort of) and tipped it over. Hard drive was completely dead. It seems to be alright. Are there any diagnostic utilities I can run that came with XP ?

Gran Hermano

If it was me I'd run Scandisk or Chkdsk to see if there is any physical
samage to the HD itself. It should show up whether there are any bad
damaged sectors on the drive.

(Open 'My Computer' - right-click drive - Properties - Tools - Check for Errors).

Overheal

how long ago was it that you dropped the other laptop? For the last number of years anyway the failsafes on HDDs are getting better and better: like ESP - the Heads can retract in a fraction of a second if they detect that the drive undergoes any G-force or free fall. It wont save you from every drop but compared to 10 years ago, its bloody amazing.

Red Sleeping Beauty

Heya Overheal, silly me again
Erm, this is a Compaq which I've had since Jan 2007. I dropped with the headphones/sleep accident in November 2007, sent it off to be repaired and it's the same one I've had since....

Everything actually seems to be ok, I'm even burning DVDs here and I've a few programs open, Just wanted some pointers or where to check to see if I'm damaged anything.

CHW

If you're worried about your hard drive(s) (and everyone should be!) some might find it beneficial to run a program which can display the SMART data coming off the hard drive. There are several free ones (I use a utility called "DiskCheckup" myself) which will display the SMART data, and based on this data, can make predictions on when a value might reach it's threshold exceed condition, basically when the hard drive may fail. I've read about newer motherboards having built in SMART analysis and monitoring, but I don't know much about the reliability of this setup, I prefer to have manual control over this process.

Whilst a hard drive can fail at any time, if you see a value like the reallocated sector count value beginning to increase, thats a good indication that the hard drive could be close to failing. However, don't skimp on making backups, I *nearly* found out the hard way. In addition to backing up documents etc, I also clone the hard drive in my main PC, so if something does go awry, I can have it swapped out in minutes and up and running again with minimal disruption.

Red Sleeping Beauty

Cheers guys, I think I'm safe. I've restarted it and done the (Open 'My Computer' - right-click drive - Properties - Tools - Check for Errors) scan and all's well.

I'm sure all of this advice is top notch stuff (most of it's over my head ) but thanks a million anyways

Close call. Basically I was falling asleep on the laptop ....... never a good idea to be on a laptop when you're tired. I must grab 40winks now as I'm jaded.

Capt'n Midnight

Gran Hermano wrote: »

If it was me I'd run Scandisk or Chkdsk to see if there is any physical
samage to the HD itself. It should show up whether there are any bad
damaged sectors on the drive.

(Open 'My Computer' - right-click drive - Properties - Tools - Check for Errors).

turn SMART reporting on in the BIOS if there is an option for it
try hdtune instead it's SMART aware and does a true surface scan www.hdtune.com
scandisk/chkdsk don't talk to the drive directly , they just rely on the drives intelligent electronics to remap damaged sectors to spare sectors at the end of the disk