OT: Laptop hard drive - I'm stumped

I repair laptops too, and fnd that a drop or fall will damage some of the tracking or connector solder joints so some component will not be seen. If the hard rive is ok in a desktop then its ok. Tell the customer that the laptop is not economical to repair. Or ask them how much money do they want to throw at it to fix it? With the current economic climate a replacement second hand of the same odel would be cheaper.

Like autos, if you crash it badly its awrite off or only fit for breaking for spares. If folk want a laptop to not break when they drop it then they should get a Panasonic toughbook. NOT a Dell. Its a hardware fault.

Is there an adaptor between the HD and the bus on the laptop that is not in the circuit when you have it in the desktop? If so, then this could be damaged.

"Buerste" wrote in news:_ecfl.16175$ snipped-for-privacy@nlpi065.nbdc.sbc.com:

The problem may lie in either the moherboard or Dell's BIOS, especially if it's a larger drive than the original.

Did you format it as FAT or NTFS?

Most likely guess is that the circuit board in the laptop is cracked. Broken traces open up and no connect-o.

Navy electronics training was "interesting". Like, for instance, how to repair a bullet hole in a circuit board...

What happened when you used the 'restore' CD in the D600?

--Winston

Don't know. Did you try the BIOS or laptop vendor diagnostics?

The laptop works fine with a different drive.

That made sense to me too so I tried a few different ones and no difference. The laptop works fine with a different drive with any adapter. And, any laptop won't see this drive with any adapter.

NTFS. Other laptops (same model - d600) won't see the drive and this laptop works fine with other drives.

This laptop works fine with other drives and other laptops won't see this drive.

It won't see the drive in BIOS so it won't get past POST.

Other laptops won't see this drive and this laptop works fine with other drives.

so you've isolated that drive is what's acting weird.

throw it out, be done with it. A new laptop disk is what? $50?

Have to agree with the crowd, if Spinrite says the drive is fine it sure sounds like the laptop has the problem. Call Dell for a RMA and get it back there before the motherboard turns into a pumpkin.

Boss just got me a Subnotebook for the truck - the Inspiron 910 Mini-9 with an STEC 8GB solid state hard drive. Should handle rough handling a lot better.

I'll have to really watch what I put on it at 8 GB. Problem is, I remember when 10MB of hard drive sounded like a lifetime supply of space, and 1200 baud was blazing fast after stepping up from 300...

("Walked twenty miles to school in a blizzard, uphill both ways...")

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When you say "doesn't see" - do you mean "doesn't boot" or "doesn't see?"

You need a boot loaded on the disk for it to boot up, I believe. If you don't have one, then other computers will see it as a secondary disk, but it might not be bootable.

When you put it on another disk, was it the only one? Did it boot up?

And when you run disk diagnostics, does it recognize that the disk was there?

Perhaps it was not plugged in properly....... Or the cable on the problem laptop was bad...

Ah. I misunderstood. I thought the drive worked on some, and not others.

If it NEVER works, thenCydrome leader is right. Toss it.

What happens when you boot from the 'restore' CD?

--Winston

Simple. "Dell from Hell" syndrome.

Then sell the man a new drive and put the old drive in an external case for him to use for a backup - so the NEXT time he drops it you don't need to salvage his files.