Can I use a multimeter continuity tester on the hard drive connection on my laptop. I need to see if the HD is making contact with all the pins in the main PCB.

 

The laptop knows the HD is there, but wont boot from it. The HD light only flickers when turned on.

 

So, can I use a continuity tester without damaging anything

Thanks

Andrew

Would probably be ok, but it would be safer to try another hard disk first I reckon.

Thanks Andy

Are laptop HDs generic with regards to the connections?

All 2.5" laptop drives have the same connections as far as I remember

Cheers Bigdave

Besides Fleabay, where could I get a second hand HD. Its really old, only 6Gb!! :shock:

Depends on what your after, i've got some lying around here somewhere (not literally, there manufactures refurbs) Will take a look.

Mega!

The one I have is a Hitachi 6.01GB, 2.5inch. It sits in an adapter tray. Sorry but I'm useless when it comes to computers! Would I need a Windows disk to see if the new (refurb) HD works? Laptop currently has Win98 installed.

I turn in the laptop and get the Dell splash screen, then just a flashing cursor in the top left corner. Any ideas?

Thnaks!

Best way to check out the laptop drive is use a 3.5" ide to 2.5" convertor and plug it into your main machine as a secondary drive, at least then you can test its connectivity and health, you can always run the Hitachi OGT diag tool if need be. A damn site easier to see whats going on. Laptops are a pain in the arse.

 

have you tried booting the laptop without the drive present? It should POST then complain about missing drive and give you boot options? If its failing POST and hanging it might be something else, I would try without the drive first.

 

I seem to have a 60gb and 80gb lappy drives hanging about, could probably find smaller if need be :nana2:

 

Hope some of that helps!

 

Dave.

Well.... Its my girlfriends laptop and was working fine until I removed the HD. :slap:

I can see 2 of the pins on the motherboard side of the connector have been pushed in slightly. Stripped it last night but cant seem to correct them, however I cant see how they are NOT making contact.

Ive tried to boot it with the HD removed, says ' Primary hard disk 0 not found'

 

Thing is, I have a laptop so am unable to check the HD. Will see if some one at work can do it. What do you mean by POST?

Thanks for the help!

If you have bent the pins slightly then there shouldnt be a reason why you cant push them back out, should be pretty easy on a laptop harddrive.

 

You would'nt be able to push the tray the whole way in if the connections were not aligned. If the tray is going back in plush then I cant see why its not making connection unless you've scared the pins back into the PCB? :D

 

POST just means Power on self test.

 

If you need to borrow a drive for testing gimmie a shout and I will see what I can do.

 

Dave.

Replaced the drive and went into the BIOS setup. The computer knows its there. If the drive was damaged and there was no info on it, would you expect to see the symptoms I've got?

Hey thanks very much, I'd like to take you up on that offer. :D

May mean my b#ll#x wont get strung up! Pins are fine, not pushed completely out. If the drive is empty, how far would the laptop boot up?

If the Bios picks it up then the connection is fine.

 

The boot sector might be corrupt which would stop you running the drive.

 

If the drive has Win98 on it, use the win98 CD to boot off, boot with cd support and when it goes into setup press F3 (if I remember correctly) this should drop you back into a DOS shell. You should from there be able to check the drive to see if the data is still there.

Thanks so much for the help, gonna try it tomorrow. Could I pick you're brains again on MSN tomorrow perhaps?! Any chance you have a 98 disc?! I've tried an XP one but nowt happens.

Thanks again for the help

ANdrew

No problem, glad to help, i'm useless with cars so it makes a change :nana2:

 

Give me a shout on MSN tomorrow if you get no joy, i'm sure I can dig out an old "backup" version of Win98 from somewhere if need be :cool:

 

Dave.

Thanks again!

:cool: