[Razer]

Seems my last thread about my mates computer has made my laptop go ape on me. I had a Windows Update annoyance and restarted where i was greeted with a lovely BSOD. Restarts, same again, disable the restart and have a look at the problem and it turns out to be driver issues. Not a problem, desktop starts up at which point i turn off my laptop and unplug it (Battery is left out to prolong its 1h 12m life) i find a Vista repair guide in the MSKB and there is a disk which claims to fix this problem. I turn my laptop on and it goes off. No warning and it was instant. I saw the power light come on and before you could blink it went off. At this point i though "great" tried all sorts of thing and have resorted to pulling out the HDD and trying it in another PC and when i plug it into any other machine it wont boot. Wont even start. So my HDD is fried. What i want to know is:

A) There is vital information on that HDD, can it be recovered?
B) Are there any checks I can do so my new HDD doesnt get fried too?
C) Has anyone else had a recent problem with the BSOD and Windows Update?

[serverguy]

A) There is vital information on that HDD, can it be recovered?

Yes, most probably / hopefully. Have you tried plugging it in to another computer as a slave drive, ie not the one it boots off? You may have to get an adapter to do this though if it is a laptop drive, they are not expensive though.

B) Are there any checks I can do so my new HDD doesnt get fried too?

Not really. Sounds like a bizarre problem, but I am not sure if the hard drive is actually fried. What happens when you power the laptop up exactly? With and without the drive?

C) Has anyone else had a recent problem with the BSOD and Windows Update?

Don't think so. Sounds like the two thing are unrelated.

[Razer]

Well in any circumstance with my laptop HDD connected any computer will not boot. take it off and away you go. Without the drive in my laptop it boots, checks the DVD drive then cant do anything else. with it in there no power at all.

[serverguy]

In which case you are right in thinking the hard drive is screwed.

It also sounds as if it ain't going to come back to let you get stuff off it. You can send it to PC World or similar for them to try and recover it but they will charge you an arm and a leg for it.

Is the laptop under warranty still?

[Razer]

It is yes i just hope i can find the reciept befor October.. Should be alright an im in no dire need for it at the moment just the files lol.

I know my OS isnt covered under the guarantee but ill check to see if the HDD being fried is and see if my info comes back too