A few days ago I had to repair a notebook with symptoms that didn’t look like a hard drive failure at all. But the problem was fixed after I replace the hard drive.
It was Toshiba Satellite A70-S249 notebook with the following problem.
When I press on the power button, the laptop starts up as usual and a red Toshiba logo appears on the screen. After a moment the logo disappears and the screen turns black without any faint image and flashing cursor. The blue light around the power button stays on and fans continue to spin normal but nothing appears on the screen. I noticed that the hard drive LED blinks green on the startup and after that shows no activity at all. After a closer inspection I noticed that the screen is not completely black (like dead black), it didn’t have any image on it but it had a very faint backlight (I would say about 3-5% of normal brightness). I was able to see that there is some backlight after I pressed on the lid close switch and the screen turned to completely black.
Here are my troubleshooting steps that I went through to find the problem.
First of all, I replaced the memory module and didn’t get any changes. Removed the wireless card, still had the same problem.
After that I removed the hard drive and started the computer. This time I got something. The notebook successfully passed the Toshiba screen and started looking for a boot device. I got some activity on the screen. To make sure that the notebook itself works fine, I booted it from Knoppix (live Linux CD) and successfully loaded the Linux operating system to the desktop. So, that’s the hard drive problem!
I installed the hard drive back in the laptop and tried to boot it again. The same failure occurred again; I got a black screen with a very faint backlight and no hard drive activity at all. I tested the hard drive with Hitachi DFT test and failed an advanced test. The problem is detected!
Finally I installed a new hard drive, reimaged the drive with a recovery DVD and got the laptop back up and running.
By the way, even though the customer’s hard drive failed the DFT test, I still was able to access it from another computer. The customer had important personal files on the failed drive. I connected it to our recovery desktop computer using IDE adapter. The “failed” hard drive was detected without any problem and I was able to recover the data.
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January 17th, 2010 at 5:13 am
Thanks for your very informative site. I have a dead Gateway 7320 laptop. The hard drive is fine as I’ve put it in a working 6625 to recover the files. Power cable checks good with 19v. How do I test the motherboard? This is my son’s unit and it smoked up early on, but still worked, then it did it again about a year later and is now dormant. Thanks again, Dave
January 5th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
dave brennan,
Nope, you are not missing anything. There is no “contact us” because I cannot answer all questions individually.
If you have a question, post it as a comment. I’ll answer if I know what’s going on.
January 5th, 2010 at 3:50 am
I stumbled onto your site and was pleasantly surprised at what I found.The is heavily loaded with lots of useful materials.kudos to you and pls keep it up.
I’m trained computer technician but never really got to actively practice the trade.Of late,I’ve been seriously thinking of geting to go into active practice but not on desktop computers.My intension is to attend a serminar on laptops and notebook repairs.Now,that I’ve found your site I know resources for training will be abundantly available,also I will like to purchase a comprehensive video tutorials on laptop and notebook repairs if it’s available.Once again,keep the good work going.
Thanks.
(Nigeria)