notebook harddrive (?) issues

I have a notebook that likes to periodically die and I'm trying to
determine my best initial course of action.

When it dies, I can hear the drive begin to spin when I press the power
button, but it stops within a couple of seconds and nothing happens.
I'll leave it for an hour/day and try again and eventually it will start.
The strange thing is that once it's up and running, there are no problems
with it.

My guess it that it's a harddrive issue, but I haven't ruled out RAM (any
other possibilities?).

Anyone know if there is a way to test the drive (while it's up and
running)? I'm not looking for bad boot sectors, as much as I'm looking
for mechanical issues withing the drive. Most of the diagnositic tools
I've seen are stricktly for scanning the drive and don't focus on the
mechanical capabilities.

I'd test the RAM with a new stick, but HP was kind enough to make it
impossible to access w/o taking the notebook apart (there's no access
cover on the bottom).

Any direction or suggestions would be appreciated.

A

 

If this is an IDE drive, for about $5-10 you can buy an adapter which
will allow you to plug the drive into a desktop. Then you can observe it
and watch if it does the same thing.

 

Most of the hard drive manufacturers offer utilities for just such testing.
I use Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test suite available for free on their
website. You can have it run (non-destructive) seek/read tests indefinitely
which will exercise the spindle and heads for you.

Dave

 

Another route, when it does not start up remove the drive form the laptop,
give it a quick roational twist with your wrist, hookup it back up to the
laptop and see if it boots. Simple mechanical test. Another thing you may
want to try is to put the drive into your freezer for an hour or so, connect
it back up and see if it boots. Both senerios should help diagnose if indeed
it is the drive, or something else, causing the problem. BTW I have resorted
to both to determine indeed if the hard drives are failing.

 

<snip>

Do you see anything on the screen when you try to start it up?
Any error messages?
Does the laptop have a cd or dvd drive? Usb?
Do you have a battery in it? Does it charge? Does the laptop adapter
run the laptop without the battery in?

 

I would not put a drive in the freezer unless (a) I had a complete backup of
the data and (b) I didn't care about whether the drive would be damaged. I
suspect that after taking the drive out of the freezer, water could
condense from the air onto the drive, and if this happened on the platters,
this could disturb the proper air gap between the head and disk, e.g.
causing the heads to get stuck to the disk. I have never tried it but it
sounds risky on a drive that still works sometimes.

Chris

 

And I think the only ones worth a damn are destructive in that they
destruct whatever is on the disk.

 

Ram can do this. Boot memtest86 and test the crap out of the ram.
I've got one laptop with ONE bad ram location that turns "good"
in a few seconds or so after it warms up. Swapping the simms so the
"good" simm gets tested first fixed the boot problem. Pulled out most
of my hair on that one.

Pull the drive...maybe have to mess with the bios setup to ignore
the fact that it's missing...boot a live linux CD. That'll eliminate
the drive variable.

Bios ROM can do this. Compaq Aero was famous for this. Reflashing the
BIOS, even with the same code fixed it until next time.

Hard drive can do this.
Weak power supply can do this.

Coke or anything else spilled inside can do this.
Ditto for smokers.

A drive that works in your desktop still may not work in the laptop.
It's worth the experiment, but not entirely conclusive if it passes.
mike

 

Thanks Mike

 

Not me () wrote in

No, don't get far enough into the boot process to get anything on the
screen. No error messages.
Yes to the CD Rom and USB.
Tested for battery issues by unplugging while it was running (to make
sure it was holding a charge). Then tested when I had the issue; issue
continues unchanged with a charged battery or with no battery and a power
cord.

Andrew

 

Hi Andrew,

I don´t think, your Harddrive is the Problem. The Drive is switched on
and off by the Computer. Maybe there is the only Problem...
But please tell more about "The notebook dies" That is really not enough
Information.
Did you already "google" for Memory expansion for your Notebook?
It is nearly unbelievable that HP blocked this Possibility...

Felix