Reseatting harddrive

RedXIV

Hi Guys,

So I made a boo boo and placed my laptop on top of a shelf to keep away from kids but it was sat on a toy and slid straight off it on to the ground, a good 6ft drop at least. Since then I get a

"Internal hard disk drive not found. To resolve this issue try reseat the drive. No bootable devices-strike f1 to retry reboot f2 for set up f5 for onboard disgnostic"

I had kinda written off the hard-drive as being busted to my dismay (alot of photos I should of backed up were on it) but my dad mentioned it could just be a faulty connector. Is this possible? Also, can I get something akin to an external hard-drive case to plug the hard-drive into?

Cheers for your help guys!
Red

MarkR

The hard drive as you may have guessed isn't great at taking a knock. You can normally remove the hard drive with a single screw from the base of your notebook. Google your notebook model and hard drive removal / upgrade.

If reseating it doesn't work, you can take out the hard drive, and either test it in a usb hard drive enclosure, and attach it to a laptop, or install it in another laptop and see if it is detected.

If you get that far, you can use linux to get the files off it. Maybe even boot off the drive in another laptop. Worth a shot anyway.

Alanstrainor

It could be exactly what the error is stating, that is, the drive may have just become partially disconnected. The only way to fix this is to open it up and take it out, and put it back in and see what happens. Depending on the laptop, this could be pretty simple, you're talking a couple of screws and 2 minutes of your time.

Only then will you know if the hard drive is dead.

RedXIV

Cheers for the responses.

I actually have already tried taking the harddrive out and putting it back in again to no avail, which is why I assumed the drive was dead. But just wondering if the connector is damaged, whats the best way to proceed with this? Should I try and get it replaced? is there a quick way I can test the harddrive still works with only another desktop in the house?

Alanstrainor

RedXIV wrote: »

Cheers for the responses.

I actually have already tried taking the harddrive out and putting it back in again to no avail, which is why I assumed the drive was dead. But just wondering if the connector is damaged, whats the best way to proceed with this? Should I try and get it replaced? is there a quick way I can test the harddrive still works with only another desktop in the house?

Yeah, you can pop it in the desktop if you have one.

You'll just need a SATA connector and a power connector. Usually there will be spares in the desktop case, but if there's not, just unplug both the cables that go into the cd drive temporarily, plug them into the hard drive, and place the hard drive ontop of the CD drive inside the case and turn on the computer. If all's well it should pick it up as a drive.
Then you can transfer files off the disk.

RedXIV

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Yeah, you can pop it in the desktop if you have one.

You'll just need a SATA connector and a power connector. Usually there will be spares in the desktop case, but if there's not, just unplug both the cables that go into the cd drive temporarily, plug them into the hard drive, and place the hard drive ontop of the CD drive inside the case and turn on the computer. If all's well it should pick it up as a drive.
Then you can transfer files off the disk.

Legend, thanks for this Will report back this evening

RedXIV

I don't know when, but at some stage, I'm buying ye pints photos retrieved and backed up on 3 systems

And it appears I now know it was the connector! again guys, thanks a mill for your help!!!

Alanstrainor

RedXIV wrote: »

I don't know when, but at some stage, I'm buying ye pints photos retrieved and backed up on 3 systems

And it appears I now know it was the connector! again guys, thanks a mill for your help!!!

Hurray! It's probably something on the motherboard alright! Happy days man.