hard drive missing!!! help please!

[Doktor]

ok, my mother is running Fedora 11 and today she tried to start up her computer and it got as far as the beginning loading screen for bios and then said there was no hard drive detected. I looked in the bios set-up and it said there was no hard drive. How do i fix this (if even possible) and more importantly, any possible reasons it did this so i can try to have it avoided? As always, thank you in advance for any help on this subject (she won't be very happy if we have to buy a new hard drive...)

-Doktor

[devils casper]

Your Hard disk could be trashed because BIOS is not detecting it. Check it cables and try it in other machine too.

[Doktor]

it's a laptop. not sure taking it out and putting it in a new machine will help very much

[Freston]

it's a laptop. not sure taking it out and putting it in a new machine will help very much

It'll just be a bit more difficult. I agree with Casper, it sounds more like a hardware problem with the drive.


What you can do, is burn a liveCD (Ubuntu or Knoppix or something) and try to let that boot your mothers lappy. Maybe it can detect *ahum* something wrong with the drive?

Good luck!

[Doktor]

alright. i will try that. Thank you and i will post if it worked (or if it says something else

[Doktor]

ok, i tried several different rescue cd's. none of them could see the hard drive. Am I missing the correct way to find the problem or am i going to have to get a new hard drive?

[Freston]

ok, i tried several different rescue cd's. none of them could see the hard drive. Am I missing the correct way to find the problem or am i going to have to get a new hard drive?

Assuming you know how to do such a thing from a rescue CD, all you have left to try is to take out the drive and put it in another computer. There may be something possible.

But it may very well be that your hard disk died, and there is not a whole lot you can do about that except with expert help and special tools.


Obviously I can't look inside your hardware from here, but from what you posted above, it looks suspiciously like a faulty disk. I can't guarantee that is the case, but if even the BIOS doesn't see the drive anymore it's either a loose connector, a burned mobo or a dead drive. If you want to make absolutely sure, you better go to a repair shop. They have tools they can use to measure the device.

[Doktor]

i was hoping it wasn't faulty... i will get it to a repair shop then, lucky for me there are several to choose from in the area...