laptop (HD?) Death

[cpt]

Hi people, hope u can help.

A M8 of mine bought an Omnibook 4150 Laptop from auction, broken. I ended up trying to fix it for him, but am stuck.

On booting up there is the following error;
"HD sector read function failed. Save to disk feature is disabled. Run PHDisk for information. FILE: create new. PARTITION: consult manual"

In the background the Dos boot screen reads
"A drive in this system cannot be unlocked. Fixed disc 0:IBM-DARA-212000 ERROR 0271: Check date and time settings".

Fdisk wont run, but interestingly it installs the virtual ram drive to drive c: So does this mean it isnt registering the HD?

I have "fiddled" with the HD in the Bios, altering settings etc, but to no luck. Head/ sector etc is correct and HD shows in Bios.

Any ideas or is a case of New HD needed?

Cheers,
CPT.

[glc]

http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Download the Drive Fitness test , make the boot floppy, and run it.

[cpt]

Great suggestion - its a good programme. It found the drive correctly and told me that it couldnt scan because the drive is password protected. Not sure whats going on there - it doesnt prompt for a password at any point.

I checked the Bios and that doesnt cover HD passwords, but I reset the use name & pass to clear, no change.

Any ideas whats going on?

[Blue_Gundam2002]

It might be incrypted, http://www.authenex.com/products_hdl...ariable=hdlock

[cpt]

so am i back to giving up and getting a new hard drive?

I presume only the hard drive is locked and not the computer, so a new hard drive would solve all my problems?

[foghat46]

A new drive would solve the problem, but it would take out all the fun (and the learning experience) of trying to figure out how to unlock the current drive.

[glc]

Try this function of DFT:

Low-level format utility (use DFT Utility option: Erase Disk)

[cpt]

Actually this is kinda fun, although it would also be good if the laptop worked!

DFT erase didn't work as the drive is password protected.

Any more ideas going?