Faulty hard drive?

[yamar1]

how do i tell if the hard drive on a laptop is working or not?, basicly when i turn the power on the power lights up but no screen comes on, the hard drive light which normaly flashes isnt anymore. can i remove the hard drive and then turn the laptop on with it removed to see if the laptop comes on?. its a gateway laptop.

[austin316gb]

Best thing to do is get yourself a boot disc and boot your computer from that.

For example you could download a LiveCD of Linux like Ubuntu or download the Ultimate Boot CD which is a collection of tools to test your PC/Laptop.

Because your booting from the CD and not the HDD if your HDD is bust you should still get something.

You could also try taking the HDD out of the machine and switching it on. You should still see your BIOS boot screen - it proabably says 'Gateway' if that's what you've got.
Also if you have a monitor you could always connect to that, then turn the laptop on and see if you get an output. Laptops will output signal to all screens UNTIL they get to windows when the windows driver tells the computer which screen to output to.

If you are turning it on and you get nothing at all no picture, can't access the BIOS screen (by pressing F1 or F10 or Del probably) it may well not be the HDD

You should still see something with a broken HDD in the machine. Although I have seen a HDD stop a computer from POSTing it's very rare

[yamar1]

thanks for the advice, tried it, still nothing. what do you think it could be?

[austin316gb]

Which bit did you try?

If you took the HDD out and still nothing your looking at:
Memory
Motherboard
Processor

but you should try throwing on an external monitor and firing it up just to check it's not a screen fault / or an onboard graphics fault (although if it's an onboard graphics fault you still might not get a pic on the external screen)

The most important question is do you get a BIOS screen or your 'Gateway' boot loading screen?

[yamar1]

Which bit did you try?

If you took the HDD out and still nothing your looking at:
Memory
Motherboard
Processor

but you should try throwing on an external monitor and firing it up just to check it's not a screen fault / or an onboard graphics fault (although if it's an onboard graphics fault you still might not get a pic on the external screen)

The most important question is do you get a BIOS screen or your 'Gateway' boot loading screen?

nothing at all on the screen no BIOS tried external moniter to, nowt.

[austin316gb]

nothing at all on the screen no BIOS tried external moniter to, nowt.

In which case it's probably going to be either the memory, processor or motherboard.

The motherboard is most likely culprit but the memory is the easiest to check by swoping it out/swoping the bank it's in. If you take the memory out altogether and fire the laptop up you may then get a beep code from the BIOS and no beep code if you put the memory back in - that's a good indicator that the module is FUBAR. Processor problems are difficult to diagnose, the best way to be to swop it out for another which is probably not a viable option for you. The only thing I can say is that excessive heat from the processor can be a good indicator of a bust CPU. Failing all that it'll be the motherboard. If it is the motherboard your probably better sucking it up and buying a new laptop to be honest.

[yamar1]

fixed, the memory wasn't clipped in properly!, thanks for the advice

[austin316gb]

No problem, glad it's sorted