Hard drive issue with Presario C300

[davidflynn12]

Laptop c300 goes to blue screen on and then constantly reboots. Recovery console cannot detect a hard drive, the bios diagnostic gaves a #2-07 fail on the hard drive which seems to indicate the hard drive is almost gone. Is there some further diagnostic software u could boot up from a cd or augment the BIOS( I do not want to upgrade the BIOS as this can be tricky sometimes). I have puppy linux which did remove four virsues from the hard drive, maybe there is some utility on that which could help? Or are we looking at replacing the hard drive?

 

[Cobalt006]

If you know your hard drives manufacture. You can download software from the for checking your hard drive.

 

[davidflynn12]

Vivard surface test found no errors. There was some errors with the seagate test but generally ok. I put in a win xp cd but it could not detect the hard drive? why is that when UBCD could ?

 

[Cobalt006]

The errors on the hard drive must be server enough that windows cannot detect the drive.

 

[Cobalt006]

Dose the software you download offer any kind of fix for the hard drive. I know western digital use to a long time ago. But have not used one in years. If so you might want to try it. Then maybe win xp will detect the drive.

 

[Zoltan Head]

If you can boot from UBCD, it may help to run some of the MBR & hard drive repair tools, also sfc /scannow &/or chkdsk from a command prompt?

 

[davidflynn12]

Just emailed seagate as their websites shows no drivers for the momentus 5400.5 drive. Hp's website has no driver for the had drive only a updater to update the SATA controller interface.

When I put in a xp cd and press f6 to manually install driver I get "windows could not specify type of mass storage". Press s I get: "Could not find floppy drive to load OEM drivers". Press enter: "No hard disks". Of course the xp CDs I have are older than the laptop model so I am wondering the drivers on those CDs are not compatible? Also would anybody know a way to determine the model of the Cd drive. The best I can do w/o opening the laptop is to email hp with the part number so I get drivers from them or Philips?

As a interim measure I will try to install puppy or ubuntu. Will resizing he partitions or infact in this case creating a new partition damage the windows os. It usually doesn't but does anybody know for sure? I want to keep access to documents and settings of xp intact when in linux.

Also it isn't my laptop but would hp issue me or the current owner with a xp cd given that the product code is on the back of the laptop?

 

[Cobalt006]

I f your laptop is Hp . Go to the Hp support site. With your Make and Model ,Plus Serial Number. You should be able to order your laptop's recovery disks. They run anywhere between 19.99 & 16.00. Depending on how many cds came with the Laptop.