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    #1

    Tech Heads, Assemble!

    Okay, so my laptop's hard drive took a dump on me. I bought a new hard drive for it, but I can't get an operating system on it. I got Vista Ultimate and Ubuntu and burned them to bootable DVDs, but nothing happens when I insert the discs, pull the battery out of the laptop, and start it up again.

    Then I decided to go to Radio Shack and get a SATA cable so I could plug my laptop hard drive up to this desktop PC, so I could format the hard drive and load the OS on it this way. The problem I'm running into now is that the laptop hard drive isn't showing up in "My Computer" on the desktop, even though Device Manager and the BIOS both recognize its presence. Nothing I've found through Google helps, and none of my computer nerd friends know what to do. Halp?
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    #2
    look in the bios (press delete when you boot up the computer) and set the first boot location as the cd drive. then save the changes, shut down the computer, put the cd in the tray, and turn it on.

    Click for my Member's Ride Thread
    Originally posted by Stephen Fry
    'It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that", as if that gives them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that." Well, so fucking what?' —Stephen Fry
    Eye Level Media - Commercial & Automotive Photography: www.EyeLevelSTL.com

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      #3
      Originally posted by steelbluesleepR View Post
      look in the bios (press delete when you boot up the computer) and set the first boot location as the cd drive. then save the changes, shut down the computer, put the cd in the tray, and turn it on.
      I can access the bios on the desktop, but not the laptop.

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        #4
        Originally posted by According2Aaron View Post
        I can access the bios on the desktop, but not the laptop.
        what does it do when you turn it on? just a black screen?

        Click for my Member's Ride Thread
        Originally posted by Stephen Fry
        'It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that", as if that gives them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that." Well, so fucking what?' —Stephen Fry
        Eye Level Media - Commercial & Automotive Photography: www.EyeLevelSTL.com

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          #5
          Originally posted by steelbluesleepR View Post
          what does it do when you turn it on? just a black screen?
          Yeah. Nothing ever pops up on the screen. It just stays completely dead. The hard disc spins around, trying to figure out what's going on, but nothing happens since there's no OS on it yet.

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            #6
            Originally posted by According2Aaron View Post
            Yeah. Nothing ever pops up on the screen. It just stays completely dead. The hard disc spins around, trying to figure out what's going on, but nothing happens since there's no OS on it yet.
            hmm, something is dead. the bios should pop up even with no hard drive plugged in.

            Click for my Member's Ride Thread
            Originally posted by Stephen Fry
            'It's now very common to hear people say, "I'm rather offended by that", as if that gives them certain rights. It's no more than a whine. It has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. "I'm offended by that." Well, so fucking what?' —Stephen Fry
            Eye Level Media - Commercial & Automotive Photography: www.EyeLevelSTL.com

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              #7
              Have you tried taking the DVD out and booting the laptop?
              .

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                #8
                Originally posted by steelbluesleepR View Post
                hmm, something is dead. the bios should pop up even with no hard drive plugged in.
                Oi.... Well, when the old hard drive started crapping out, before it finally died, it would do exactly what it's doing now (nothing), until I'd kill all power to the laptop, turn it up at a certain angle, tap the hard drive or computer, and start it again. But I was still able to get it to work back then, while it was still showing nothing, before I tap it to make it boot up.

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                  #9
                  Originally posted by PowderedMilkMan View Post
                  Have you tried taking the DVD out and booting the laptop?
                  Yes. It's always just a dead screen, even without the DVD in.

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                    #10
                    Did you set the old laptop hdd as slave before hooking it up to the desktop pc?
                    "form follows function."
                    Louis Sullivan

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Chan_Man View Post
                      Did you set the old laptop hdd as slave before hooking it up to the desktop pc?
                      No. I don't know what that means to set is as slave. The old laptop hard drive is completely dead. It's the new hard drive I'm plugging into the desktop PC.

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                        #12
                        http://www.pcguide.com/byop/byop_Set...iveJumpers.htm

                        here you go man. that should point you in the right direction.

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by Leung View Post
                          http://www.pcguide.com/byop/byop_Set...iveJumpers.htm

                          here you go man. that should point you in the right direction.
                          My hard drive is a SATA (Serial ATA), so it doesn't have those kinds of pins to set. And I read that these SATA drives don't require jumpers, which is one of the benefits of this new type of drive.

                          However, I keep checking the cables to insure that they're securely jammed into the laptop hard drive and the desktop PC's motherboard, and they are.

                          So I think that a poor connection to the drive isn't the problem, as both the desktop PC's BIOS and Device Manager recognize the laptop's hard drive, it's just not displayed in "My Computer," or any other means of accessing it.

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                            #14
                            see if you can go to control panel- administrative tools - computer management - storage - disk management - the disk should be there, but it's probably unformatted and windows can take care of that for you

                            Now that may be different for vista but it should be very similar

                            Now you laptop probably has either, a failing screen or a failing video card, but chances are that it's just a loose wire. My laptop started doing this about 2 weeks ago. I tired plugging it into my desktop monitor to see if the video card was at fault and I worked perfect hooked up to my monitor so I knew it wasn't that.

                            So skip ahead I took the whole laptop apart and checked all the wiring but I couldn't find any problem so I put it all back together and I haven't had a problem since gotta love it when that sort of "repair" happens

                            Get back to me if you're still having troubles, we may need to download the disk manufacturers utilities disk to install the drive

                            on the stairs, she grabs my arm, says whats up,
                            where you been, is something wrong?
                            i try to just smile, and say everything’s fine.

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                              #15
                              Awesome! Okay, I went into Disk Management and initialized the hard drive. Now the desktop PC recognizes it! My friend, who's in school to work on computers and networks and such, told me to partition the drive, as I also want to load Ubuntu on the drive.

                              My question is this: As I understand it, drive partitions are supposed to separate operating system files from regular files. If this is the case, how much space should set aside for Vista Ultimate and Ubuntu, and how much should be set aside for general files?

                              And if I want to redo the partitions later, once the hard drive/laptop are up and running, how would that go? Would it damage or delete files or anything?

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