Laptop Woes

[Twiz]

My laptop keeps coming up with the error "operating system not found". When I boot off the windows CD to recover it says there are no hard drives installed on the computer. This laptop was working fine 20 minutes ago, but its suddenly crashed and wont start up again. Does anyone have any ideas as to what I should do?

EDIT: I have a Samsung X05 laptop running Windows XP Professional

EDIT: Thank God, it's fixed itself and logged back into Windows. Hard drive must've overheated or somewhat.

EDIT: Same problem again! How can I recover my not recognised hard drive :(

[pieeater]

Is the hard drive connected properly? If so it could be dead.

[Twiz]

I think the hard drive is dead yeah, the BIOS isn't recognising it and all the diagnostic tools I run don't see it at all. For a while it was taking a good long time to tell me "no operating system found", and after 10 boots or so it would sometimes log onto Windows, but now it's taking just a few seconds to boot up and tell me "no operating system found". Are there any tools anyone can recommend to fix this problem perhaps? I have the latest BIOS for the laptop. If not, are there any decent live cds i can use to get at least limited functionability back? I've tried windows on a memory stick but I was hoping for something more substantial

[piemastermike]

there's all manner of linux distros that work off live CDs or usb sticks

[Timmeh]

A tool to make a dead hard disk not dead any more? Call a necromancer who specialises in computer hardware? No really though, your only realistic option is to just buy a new one. I agree with the above, disk is probably stuffed or at best well and truly on its way out. Try formatting it though, just to be sure. There are loads of live CDs you could try, but ultimately you'll probably just need to buy a new disk and install the OS of your choice on it so I'd say do it sooner rather than later. If you were referring to accessing the disk to get data back which I assume you are... well it is possible, I have done it in the past; you load a stable OS (ahem, unix) on a non-fucked disk and sit there with your hand poised on the power cable of the dying drive, start copying data to the working one and wait until you hear grinding or see the data transfer ceasing then pull the plug before more damage can occur. You'll also note down the file name you were on when death occurred, plug back in and start copying again from the next sequential file and rinse and repeat until you find more that isn't broken. I should point out that this method can take days to recover just a few gb of data if the disk is especially dying (and that's assuming it isn't dead yet), so unless you were storing something absolutely critical and irreplaceable on there (and lets face it, if it was that critical and irreplaceable you'd have a backup), I wouldn't bother.

[FuriousPanda]

Righto, rather than spam the place up with new threads, here is a laptop woe of my own. I just got given a free laptop (which i'm currently using) because it was completely fucked. I salvaged what I could and re-installed windows, which worked without a problem. Now I've finally encountered a problem.

http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/4074/errorrf8.png
My speakers don't work basically

Can anyone suggest a quick fix? I can cope without them, but it would be nice to have everything working.

Also it seems my keyboard layout is slightly buggered (the " key is where the @ key is)

[piemastermike]

the keyboard thing will be to do with language settings, change that in the control panel :)

[doctor_fruitbat]

Sounds like you have a driver problem, FuriousPanda; follow the instructions it gives you in that error message, and if that or reinstalling, updating or rolling back the drivers doesn't work, then possibly the sound card is buggered.

My laptop currently makes obscure clicking noises if the case panel on the bottom isn't loosened, is warped from heat, overheats in moderate temperatures, has a broken microphone and the sound card occasionally packs in and has to be restarted, so I have plenty of laptop woes to worry about right now.

[FuriousPanda]

Sounds like you have a driver problem, FuriousPanda; follow the instructions it gives you in that error message, and if that or reinstalling, updating or rolling back the drivers doesn't work, then possibly the sound card is buggered.

Did that, that didnt fix the sound problem and also buggered my internet so i had to do a system restore anyway :(.

The sound card should be fine because it was working before I reinstalled windows, and that was yesterday...

[doctor_fruitbat]

Sounds like your installation went wrong then. Try using the repair function on the XP disc, and if that doesn't work then you may want to consider doing another clean reinstall. I'd get a second opinion on that before doing it, mind.

[MargateMan]

There's always the possibility your sound card doesn't use a driver that comes on the Windows XP disk, if it's possible, try going to the manufacturers website and getting the driver from them, companies like Dell and HP let you choose your computer, and then tell you the drivers it'll need, I had the same problem with an NForce 2 Sound card on my XP computer, they just don't provide the driver with XP