Well, TRIBBLE...

crm14916

The kids were using the just-over-one-year-old laptop to do their homework this afternoon and an accident occurred tipping the device off the kitchen table and onto the floor...

On starting the computer back up, it now tells me it can't detect the hard drive... So much for playing the new missions on Tribble or finishing my crystalline entity stuff...


CM

starswordc

crm14916 wrote: »

The kids were using the just-over-one-year-old laptop to do their homework this afternoon and an accident occurred tipping the device off the kitchen table and onto the floor...

On starting the computer back up, it now tells me it can't detect the hard drive... So much for playing the new missions on Tribble or finishing my crystalline entity stuff...


CM

Hope you sprung for the extended warranty.

crm14916

It's, or rather it was, the family computer. Got it for Christmas about a year and a half ago... Had STO and SWTOR on it. Wasn't specifically for gaming, nor did we have the warranty on it...

comrademoco

Well if there is no warranty, I don't see why not not opening and tinkering with the insides maybe some cables idk... something in there to hopefully get the drive working so you an transfer the files to a new laptop/desktop... assuming you wanna take the time to do so.

evilmark444

Hope your able to get it fixed somehow. This is one of the many reasons I'll never abandon the desktop computer (though the main reason is the ability to upgrade).

crm14916

I actually did tinker with the insides... I thought to myself that maybe the hard drive just got jossled out of place... Had the whole thing open in 20 minutes and tightened everything, took out and reinserted all the little ribbons for the separate pieces, and put it all back together...

You know there's that moment you push the "on" button and hope that maybe you were smart enough to figure things out... and then you find out nothing changed? I guess a doctorate degree in cosmology doesn't mean I can fix a computer...

evilmark444

maybe the hard drive itself is just broken, a new hard drive costs substantially less than a new computer ... but you'd also need a way to reinstall windows.

equinox976

Accidentally a coke bottle. Everywhere!

galatt

crm14916 wrote: »

I actually did tinker with the insides... I thought to myself that maybe the hard drive just got jossled out of place... Had the whole thing open in 20 minutes and tightened everything, took out and reinserted all the little ribbons for the separate pieces, and put it all back together...

You know there's that moment you push the "on" button and hope that maybe you were smart enough to figure things out... and then you find out nothing changed? I guess a doctorate degree in cosmology doesn't mean I can fix a computer...

Did you hear the drive spinning when you turned it on? If so it may yet be salvageable. Time for a trip to best Buy's geek squad for a complete inspection of it.

dalolorn

On the bright side, you (presumably/hopefully) have the event project slotted so you can complete it next time, and the new missions are coming out on Holodeck in July anyway.

jonsills

See, there's your problem. If you'd broken your connection to, say, the 51 Pegasi system, you could use your doctoral knowledge to fix that. You just broke things on too small a scale, is all.

rllaillieu

Have you got another computer? If you do, just boot STO up there and everything will be fine. But yeah, dude a few comments above had a good idea. Drop by Geek Squad, they're good at what they do.

ryan218

jonsills wrote: »

See, there's your problem. If you'd broken your connection to, say, the 51 Pegasi system, you could use your doctoral knowledge to fix that. You just broke things on too small a scale, is all.

Seriously, PWE, why can't we have 'like' buttons on the forums?

OP, you don't happen to know if your Hard Drive is a Solid State Drive or a Magnetic Disk Drive, do you? If it's a magnetic disk drive, you should be able to hear a whir if it's recieving power. If it's an SSD, I don't know how you can check.

If it's not recieving power, try plugging it into another computer if you have one. If it still doesn't receive power, it's broke. If it does, the problem might be with the motherboard connection, not the drive. Unfortunately, that means you'll need a whole new laptop, since I believe the motherboard isn't removable (at least not easily) on most laptops. If it is the hard drive, it should be cheaper to replace.

If the hard drive does recieve power but still won't access on a different computer, you may still be able to salvage the drive. If you live in the UK, PC World have their own version of the Geek Squad who may be able to help.

markhawkman

For me the next thing I'd do is to attempt to add the hard drive to another computer as a secondary drive, just to see if it's the drive itself. It's possible the real cause is damage to the motherboard.

"Can't detect" isn't usually an issue with the drive itself, unless the control circuits on the drive are broken. It usually just means the computer can't connect to it.

crm14916

Thanks everyone for you comments and suggestions... Will try a few things this weekend and will keep y'all posted


CM

mirrorchaos

it depends what your HDD is, if its a SSD or a standard HDD. with a standard HDD and it was left on when it took a tumble, any sudden landing on its side like that would of pushed the metal heads on the disk into the platters, it would cause damage to your HDD, the chances are at that point even running check disk on the HDD wouldnt solve the issue depending how severe the damage is to the surface of those platters is and you could be running check disk for a long time trying to recover the disk from bad sectors. even after that it will likely run slow.

if its a SSD, it depends if it has shock resistance, in that it can withstand the sudden jolt while on, if not, the chances are that it may not recognise at all, but if you had a shock resistant one, i mean there is only so much shock resistance it can take before even if gets damaged, even so you may need to do a scan disk on it anyway to make sure it is fine.

markhawkman

Yeah, but crashed heads usually give a different error. Something like "Unable to read disk" instead of "can't detect".

Also... crashed heads mean the disk now has metal filings inside it which will slowly get worse,

postinggum

Things to test: HDD in another machine; laptop's ability to read external disk, like usb hard drive or stick; laptop's ability to read an internal hard drive. Then apply some logic to the results.

All fine - probably impossible, makes no sense

Laptop reads external disks but not internal - laptop is scrap/only bootable with external drive, which is an amusing project for an IT nerd or cheap backup machine, but requires a working machine to get the downloads onto a stick and time spent having fun with an OS and laptop.

HDD works but laptop cannot read internal drive - retrieve important stuff from drive and get a new computer.

Laptop reads internal hdd - slap in a new hard disk, knowing it could have been worse. Buy kids a piece of junk machine.

Fortunately scrap IT gear can have better ebay value than you'd think.

crm14916

So, the laptop has been tested, and the hard drive is shot, and there was some error with the mother board...

I'm wondering what would work real well in an HP 15 notebook of I installed Ubuntu and wanted to run STO thru wine. Anyone have suggestions on where to look for hard drives and possible mother boards for such a machine?

Thanks!
CM

evilmark444

Sorry to hear the bad news. Replacing the motherboard in a laptop is very complicated. It needs to be specifically designed for that laptop or if won't fit, and you have to pretty much take the entire thing apart to get it out. Your much better off getting a new computer if the old mother board can't be salvaged.

This is one of the reasons I'll never stop using a desktop, it's so much easier to replace components.

angrytarg

I have to agree. I attempted to find some shop who would either replace the mainboard of my old laptop or at least have a spare on so I could do it myself (I usually build my own machines when it comes to desktops, so I think I could have done that).

But it turns out getting a mainboard even without the labour costs to replace it I'd have paid more than I'd have for a newer and better laptop and almost as much as I did for my desktop PC I got a year or so later. So replacing a mainboard on a laptop is most of the times not a viable option as @evilmark444 said they are specifically designed for that one specific laptop case and the moment the manufacterer releases a succession model the spare parts for the laptop you currently have go out of print/stock and thus get ridiculously expensive to replace.

If your laptop is still being sold and supported you might be lucky, but if not you should cosnider buying a new one. It sucks that we live in a time and world where throwing away technology is so much more common than fixing it, but in this case it's not like you could use any spare part. Alternative would be to check ebay and used electronics stores for a defective laptop of your model, it's a safe purchase as long as the mainboard is still intact. Defective laptops usually cost less than 100 Euros.​​

markhawkman

Realistically, the main board is the most expensive part of a laptop. Every other part is a device attached to it. So, yeah, they're usually not cheap.