Laptop issues

[Fhloston]

Roommate's laptop was on a small table (one of those laptop tables from Walmart) about a foot above ground. Table collapsed and the laptop hasn't been able to start up. We figured the hard drive was knocked loose or something. Took it out, put it back, nothing. Tried restoring the system to an earlier point, nothing.

It gets as far as the blue Windows welcome screen, but just stays there. Couple of times it got about that far and the screen started flashing black and white. We were thinking of restoring the system to factory settings, but I feel that there's a hardware issue here. Wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar or has any idea of what's wrong with the laptop. Thanks in advance.

[Mellema]

Maybe check if the RAM is still attached properly.

[Fhloston]

We re-seated the RAM and HD, still goes on "infinite loading" on the blue Windows Vista screen. Trying our best to avoid wiping the system since I still feel it's a hardware issue.

[hey]

Does the hdd work in another computer? Have you ran a chkdsk?

[Isiolia]

^ Sounds like a HDD issue to me.

[Karinastar]

I agree, a tumble like that can very easily damage a HDD. :/

[Dranio]

rather then starting a new thread, thought I'd post it in here.

My Mother's laptop stopped booting. I tried booting from a W7 install disk from her HDD, it did the "loading files" and the a black screen with clicking sounds coming from the computer. Then I popped in a spare HDD of mine to rule out that as the problem (as it wouldn't even boot from the DVD) but it booted from the DVD fine and everything. I'm pretty sure the HDD is the main problem. What i don't understand is why it wouldn't boot from the DVD with her HDD, but did with mine. Would there possibly be another issue? or am I thinking too much into it?

sorry for asking before yours was fully resolved though :/

[jmc]

rather then starting a new thread, thought I'd post it in here.

My Mother's laptop stopped booting. I tried booting from a W7 install disk from her HDD, it did the "loading files" and the a black screen with clicking sounds coming from the computer. Then I popped in a spare HDD of mine to rule out that as the problem (as it wouldn't even boot from the DVD) but it booted from the DVD fine and everything. I'm pretty sure the HDD is the main problem. What i don't understand is why it wouldn't boot from the DVD with her HDD, but did with mine. Would there possibly be another issue? or am I thinking too much into it?

sorry for asking before yours was fully resolved though :/

The clicking you hear is more than likely the hard drive......it's toast

[Isiolia]

Computers will often hang if the HDD is borked because they're sending it commands and waiting for a response...and waiting...and waiting...

[Fhloston]

Does the hdd work in another computer? Have you ran a chkdsk?

We tried the startup recovery option. It said it fixed some issues but it seems to have gotten worse.

Restarted, hit F8 so we can try and run chkdsk and got the blue screen of death. :/

Guess we'll check out newegg or eBay and try to find a new HD....