Hard Drive Gone?

[MedRxMan]

Have a Compaq Presario 2100 series Notebook.
All of a sudden when starting PC the Windows XP darker screen Appears, then
the Compaq Flash Screen, then the Windows XP pale blue screen that appears
just prior to the desktop and that is where the boot process stops. I can
not hear the hard drive spinning but my hearing is not too great.

Is this a sign of a failed hard drive?

Thanks

 

[Malke]

Have a Compaq Presario 2100 series Notebook.
All of a sudden when starting PC the Windows XP darker screen Appears,
then the Compaq Flash Screen, then the Windows XP pale blue screen
that appears just prior to the desktop and that is where the boot
process stops. I can not hear the hard drive spinning but my hearing
is not too great.

Is this a sign of a failed hard drive?

Possibly. There is no way of knowing from your post. Run hardware
diagnostics, starting with a diagnostic utility downloaded from the
drive mftr.'s website. You will create a bootable cd or floppy with the
file. Boot with it and do a thorough test. If the drive fails any
physical tests, replace it. Here are some general hardware
troubleshooting steps:

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot

Testing hardware failures often involves swapping out suspected parts
with known-good parts. If you can't do the testing yourself and/or are
uncomfortable opening your computer, take the machine to a professional
computer repair shop (not your local equivalent of BigStoreUSA).

Malke

 

[MedRxman]

Hello,
Downloaded and ran Hard Drive Diagostics. No Issues.
I then booted with Partion Magic and did disk check and got 2 error
messages:
1. Error 1516-Partition Improperly dismounted
2. Lost clusters 1312305-1312305

POI: The C drive can not be accessed.
ex. at a A:> prompt and try to do Dir c: comes back with invalid drive
PC has Windows XP Home

Actually a friends PC-trying to help

Suggestions please.

Thanks

 

[Malke]

Hello,
Downloaded and ran Hard Drive Diagostics. No Issues.
I then booted with Partion Magic and did disk check and got 2 error
messages:
1. Error 1516-Partition Improperly dismounted
2. Lost clusters 1312305-1312305

POI: The C drive can not be accessed.
ex. at a A:> prompt and try to do Dir c: comes back with invalid drive
PC has Windows XP Home

Actually a friends PC-trying to help

I Googled for "Partition Magic Error 1516-Partition Improperly
dismounted" and got quite a few links. I think I'd start with this one
from Symantec (who own PM now):

http://tinyurl.com/qy6cz

Malke

 

[MedRxMan]

Decided to reformat hard drive and install Windows XP Pro

Thanks