[NCLUG] Hard drive recovery

[Chad Perrin]

On Tue, Jun 19, 2012 at 10:47:21AM -0600, Michael Coffman wrote:
> 
> "I had heard noises such as click-click-clock-clock coming from the 
> laptop's hard drive on Saturday afternoon, before I shut it down.
> 
> Since then, whenever I power the laptop ON, this is the message that 
> appears:
> No bootable device - insert book disk and press any key
> 
> F2
> Startup test failed
> Boot device not found (03F0)
> 
> F3
> Run In Test failed
> Boot device not found (03F0)
> 
> F4
> Hard Disk Test failed
> Boot device not found (03F0)
> 
> F11
> Diagnostic Log
> Result: 03F0"
> 
> After that they took it to officemax and then best buy.   Then the 
> stopped by my desk yesterday.
> 
> I am going to forward the other suggestions to them.  I will also pass 
> along your offer to possibly assist.

Okay, that sounds like it is actually a hard drive problem -- and
probably not a drive electronics problem.  In short, it sounds pretty
expensive to fix.  Someone correct me if I'm overlooking something, but
generally if it's a drive electronics problem the drive just stops
working without any clicking noises, and similarly if hooking it up to a
different computer would let you get at what's on it there's no problem
with the drive at all and the problem is with something like the
motherboard's controller for the drive (in which case, again, it just
stops running).

Good luck.  It doesn't sound like I'd be able to help, after all; I don't
have the equipment to deal with a physical drive failure problem.

-- 
Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]