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Banged on Keyboard- Now "No bootable disk"

2K views 24 replies 4 participants last post by  Old Rich 
#1 ·
Hello-

I got bad family news via email and, for some horrible reason, I banged on my keyboard. Computer worked fine but then when I tried to boot it up the next day I heard a whirring noise and "No bootable drive available." There was nothing previously wrong with the computer, it is a few years old. I have previously replaced the display on a Macbook and I was wondering if I could try and remedy this myself by opening it up and seeing what I had damaged. I would try and go to someplace in Manhattan but I don't have any personal experience with any one service provider.

Any ideas? I used YouTube videos to fix my other problem but I can't find anything on HP HDX laptops and repair.

Your assistance is greatly appreciated, many thanks
 
#3 ·
Most likely the HDD was damaged when you bashed the KB (the HDD is right underneath it, as well as all the other components). This will most likely need a new HDD and a reload. In the future.. Aim for the desk, not the computer.
 
#11 ·
My father had a heart attack and instead of a phone call I got an email that I didn't check until 8 hours later. It was far out of my typical range of responses. If I didn't get a Vista CD when I got the HP HDX and the first drive failed is there a way to get the backed up material from the second drive eventhough I have the blue screen?
 
#4 ·
I took apart what I considered conservatively to be the minimum of the case. I checked the two hard drives and took off the keyboard to make sure I hadn't loosened a connection when I stupidly hit the keyboard. The error message went from "no bootable disk" to "DISK READ ERROR, HIT CTRL ALT DEL TO REBOOT." The problem is the clicking noise is still there. Does the clicking noise mean definitively that it is the hard drive? Because the noise is coming from the upper left near the power button and the hard drives sound smooth.

Thank you very much for your assistance
 
#6 ·
I now have the blue screen of death with the white cursor when I try and boot. It is an HP HDX with two internal hard drives. The BIOS diagnostics say the first hard drive has to be replaced but I can't get it to boot System Restore when I use F11. I know the blue screen usually means hardware failure but I don't think that both drives are wiped out. This notebook doesn't come with a Vista restore disk. I am concerned that I did more damaged than good by going in and checking connections. At one point I did see the pxe-e16 error when I changed the boot order to the DVD/CD drive instead of the hard drive in F10 and tried to run the Windows Office disk just to see what would happen. I really was hoping to be able to resolve this on my own, going to a repair place is not an option right now. Starting in safe mode just means a black screen with "safe mode" in all four corners.
 
#7 ·
Can you boot from the second drive? I had a false sense of security thinking there were two internal drives and I haven't backed up online lately since I didn't want to pay more. When I did the diagnostics for the secondary hard drive I got a message saying to replace the first hard drive. It didn't say anything about the second.
 
#10 ·
Is the Ultimate Boot CD the recommended one? Will my notebook even read the CD now that I have the PXE-E16 error message? I had previously changed the boot order and put in the Windows Office CD just to see what it would do and I got the PXE-E16.

Did I mess up the DVD drive by taking off the keyboard? I was extremely careful when disconnecting/reconnecting cables.
 
#12 ·
You can take the drive out and temporarily attach it to a working pc to salvage the data.

Hard Drive Recovery Tutorial - How To Slave A Hard Drive

You may have to take ownership of the files first: How to take ownership of a file or a folder in Windows XP

. . or, You can use an adaptor like this: or an external enclosure like this.

or, you could use Ubuntu - this would eliminate the need to physically remove the Hard Drive.

You can get it from here: Download | Ubuntu

Step #2 on that page shows you how to create the USB/CD.

Once you boot into Ubuntu, (choose the option where it runs off the USB/CD) you can use it to copy your files from the Windows Partition to an external hard drive (Note: Do not copy anything to the Ubuntu Filesystem as it will not be saved on shut-down)
 
#24 ·
Rich,

Thanks for your reply. I needed to take a break from dealing with the HP. I finally got Ubuntu to boot up again (I stupidly shut it down after I did it the first time and thereafter got an error message. I had to make another CD of the program on the old Macbook). The disk utility sees both hard drives but the "Smart Status" of the first drive is "not supported." The second drive has a green circle but says "Disk has a few bad sectors." How can I try to get the information off the drive now? I am sorry about the stupid question, I truly appreciate your time. The Disk Utility lists SATA Host Adapter, 2 250GB hard drives, the DVD drive and a 697 MB file labeled filesystem.squashfs

Many, many thanks
 
#13 ·
I am working on the CD. I tried to boot up again and pressing F8 I got "Edit Boot Options" and this message. I can't find out what it means.

Edit windows boot options for: Ramdisk settings
Path: \windows\system32\winload.exe

[/NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /DETECTHAL /MININT RDIMAGEOFFSET=8192 RDIMAGE LENGTH=31 61088 RDPATH=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\sources\boot.wim]
 
#15 ·
I have the Ubuntu CD in and selected "Try Ubuntu." I am not sure now how to get the information off of the partitioned drive now. Under "Places" there is nothing under "Documents." Under backup.1.exe there isn't anything else. I know this must be a stupid question, thank you again so much for all of your patience and your help.
 
#17 ·
You can go to open an application called the 'Disk Utility' and it will show you the drives that are attached. If you don't see your drive, then it is screwed. If you do see your drive, that means there is a chance you can connect it to another computer and extract your information or create an image.
 
#18 ·
The second HDD is only usable as a primary HDD if it was setup in a mirrored RAID. I'm not sure how it was setup, but if you could see the second HDD from within XP prior to this happening, then most likely it was not setup as a mirrored raid. From the way it is acting, most likely it was not setup as a mirrored RAID. If it had been, then it would have switched over to the secondary drive, automatically when the first failed and then given you some kind of warning. BTW, the PXE Error you were getting was just an error stating that it could not find a bootable network connection. Putting the Office CD in is not going to do anything because it is not a bootable CD. You didn't damage the drive. It still boots to an Ubuntu disk, so no worries.

In any case, you will need to replace that first hdd. it is damaged beyond repair. My suggestion would be to replace it with a matching hdd, or if you want to upgrade, then to get 2 matching hdd's and replace them both, and start over. Contacting HP should get you a set of recovery disks.

My condolences for your father. I hope he is recovering.
 
#20 ·
Thank you for your kindness, I appreciate your time. I had to take a break from trying to deal with the HP for a while. I am obviously a total amateur, I wanted to ask what must be a stupid question. There are downloads that say they can read a damaged hard drive and can recover the information. Is that even possible? I am trying to get the HP to boot through to Ubuntu again and check the disk utility to see if it can be seen in that system. I know I need to get a new primary hard drive but I was still wondering if there is any way I can salvage the information. I don't think the second hard drive has the complete backup.

Many, many thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.
 
#21 ·
I finally got Ubuntu to boot up again (I stupidly shut it down after I did it the first time and thereafter got an error message. I had to make another CD of the program on the old Macbook). The disk utility sees both hard drives but the "Smart Status" of the first drive is "not supported." The second drive has a green circle but says "Disk has a few bad sectors." How can I try to get the information off the drive now? I am sorry about the stupid question, I truly appreciate your time.
 
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