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Thread ID: 106364 2010-01-05 22:52:00 Laptop died? Bright1 (15554) Press F1
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846151 2010-01-05 22:52:00 Hi all,

I am having trouble with my laptop after flying back from Auckland yesterday afternoon. It was working fine when we left but now we are home when we start it up it comes up with a blue box saying "select boot device" and has 4 choices, Boot from Hard disk, Boot from floppy drive, boot from CD/DVD, and Boot from LAN, if I select any of them the screen flashes black and then goes back to teh scrren saying "select boot device". I think it may have been knocked on the plane (it was in a laptop bag inside another bag that was checked in). Anyone got any ideas on what is wrong and or how to fix it. It has no external devices attached when I start it up.

Thanks for your help
Bright1 (15554)
846152 2010-01-05 23:28:00 Hmmmm.

Reminds me of this!

www.youtube.com

My initial gut feeling is that the HDD needs reseating, but that would be a wild guess.
HAL9000 (12736)
846153 2010-01-05 23:35:00 +1 that's the first thing I would try too. KarameaDave (15222)
846154 2010-01-05 23:38:00 Sounds like the HDD has possibly died, from rough handling (or maybe the HDD has come loose from its socket to the motherboard, take the cover off and have a look (remove battery/mains lead first), not likely though, usually a tight fit).
Will it boot up from a bootable cd/dvd (your OS disc or recovery disc)?
feersumendjinn (64)
846155 2010-01-06 02:11:00 Sounds like the HDD has possibly died, from rough handling (or maybe the HDD has come loose from its socket to the motherboard, take the cover off and have a look (remove battery/mains lead first), not likely though, usually a tight fit).
Will it boot up from a bootable cd/dvd (your OS disc or recovery disc)?


Don't have the os or recorvery disk for this computer. It is a packard Bell easynote around 5 or 6 years old. Might take a look inside tonight but would prefer not to
Bright1 (15554)
846156 2010-01-06 03:02:00 Any other bootable os discs (linux live discs from any magazine) or download (Puppy (puppylinux.org htm) or similar) just to make sure the rest of the hardware is still ok.
What model/number laptop is it?, may be able to find service tips for disassembly.
For instance, this may help you
ftp://ftp.packardbell.com/pub/itemnr/7429740000/disassembly_easynote_mb.pdf
feersumendjinn (64)
846157 2010-01-06 03:16:00 Tried with Vista business disk and it worked so decided to look inside. It turns out the hard-drive had slipped out of place (was missing a screw holding it there :illogical ) but connected it up and away it went. thanks for your help. Happy new year! Bright1 (15554)
846158 2010-01-06 03:22:00 Cool, excellent!
Would advise doing an image of the HDD, or making recovery discs if it has the capability to do that if it has a recovery partition (just in case!)
feersumendjinn (64)
846159 2010-01-06 03:25:00 Good news!:thumbs: KarameaDave (15222)
846160 2010-01-06 12:38:00 So my gut was right!!!

Glad to hear all is well again.

Question is, where is the missing screw???
HAL9000 (12736)
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