Laptop Will Not Boot

[mattaggie]

Im working on an HP Pavilion dv6000. It starts to boot up. You see the Windows XP screen and then for a split second you can see a blue screen with lots of text on it, but it goes by so fast I cant read any of it, and then reboots. It does this over and over. I can get in BIOS. It has a hard drive diagnostics option. When I run it it says "#01-7 Fail." I cannot find a place in BIOS where I can see if the PC is detecting the hard drive. I am assuming since I can get the boot process to at least begin, it is see the drive. I wish a had a notebook har drive usb adapter to see if my PC could detect it and run diagnostics there. So my question is, is there anything else I can try? Or does this mean the hard drive is dead?

[Spools]

Can you boot in Safe Mode? If you can, Right Click on “My Computer” and go to “Properties”. Then go to the “Advanced” tab and under the headline “Startup and Recovery”, press the “Settings” button. Untick the “Automatically Restart” box and press Ok. Reboot normally.

[mattaggie]

When it reboots I do get the screen saying that windows did not start successfully and it gives me the options to start in safe mode. When I select safe mode it begins to boot but then restarts again.

[Spools]

Have you added any new hardware recently or done anything with drivers? Anyhing else you've done recently that might have caused an issue?

[glc]

It has a hard drive diagnostics option. When I run it it says "#01-7 Fail."

Replace the hard drive.

If you need to recover data, get one of these:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=2020D&cat=HDD

[mattaggie]

It is not my computer. But I quized the person who owns it and they did not know of any changes. They wouldnt even know how to change the hardware or drivers. Im just going to go ahead and get a new hard drive. thanks for the help.

[mattaggie]

Im having trouble figuring out exactly what hard drive I need. What is in it is a Seagate ST98823AS 80GB Serial AT Disc Drive. What confuses me is how it connects to the computer. I dont crack open laptops very often so Im inexperienced when it comes to laptop hard drives. When I look at the pictures for the standard SATAII drives, it looks the same as one that goes into a desktop. But the Seagate drive in this one has vertical copper? extensions that slide down into the moterboard when installed. So can someone shed some light on exactly what kind of hard drive I need?

[glc]

Those "extensions" are removable, and need to be transferred to the new drive. That's a standard 2.5" SATA drive.

[mattaggie]

How do I handle re-installing windows? Windows recovery was on a partition on the bad hard drive. Cant I use another copy of XP to install and use the validation code that came with the laptop?

[doubledragon5]

If you have a OEM, (not from any other maker) you can use it. You will still have to enter the key that came with the laptop, and you will have to activate it..

[glc]

You will need to order a recovery kit from HP.