MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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We have a Sony laptop that decided a few months ago to have a hard drive failure.
I tested my IT skills to the limit by replacing the HD, and reinstalling windows, along with most of the associated drivers I could find on the Sony Support site. All was working nicely, until it died, and wouldn't boot at all.
Rather than faffing around, I took what I thought would be the easy approach, removed the & formatted it on another PC, with the plan to start afresh, again.
Only trouble is, it hasn't worked!
Plugged everything back in, turned it on, popped the installation disk in & nothing happens - blank screen.
Same as if there is no disk in - laptop turns on, fan starts, but the screen stays blank.
I don't get any option to go into the Bios, etc as the screen does nothing.
Have I missed something obvious? Is there a way to test everything is functioning as it should be? Or should I launch it down the garden in a fit of rage?
Look closely. Is the screen black, or is it very very very dark?
What Cougar is getting at is that you might just have a screen backlight failure.
Does it have an external graphics port, a VGA or HDMI port for example, that you can hook up to an external monitor?
Yes it does - i've checked that with a monitor & a TV - no output.
If I put the installation disk in, the drive starts spinning, then stalls.
I'm completely stumped (doesn't take much when talking IT!)
Just so we're clear,
When you say there's nothing on screen, there's absolutely nothing on screen at any point after you hit the power button? It doesn't display something for a bit and then go off?
Any other signs of life? Hard disk activity LED? Beeps?
No - nothing at all, at any point from pressing the on button.
No hard drive beep, the fan starts, and if I put a disk in its drive, it starts, then stalls.
Only light that shows is the power light.
I removed the HD earlier & tried to boot it - exactly the same result, I guess there could be a hardware failure in there somewhere?
try pressing f2 repeated ly when powering on or f8 or f12 or del to get into the bios. Not sure which key but it should be one of those
Sounds like the motherboard's toast, to be honest. Which means it's probably beyond economical repair if it's an old one (unless you can pick up a cheap one off eBay perhaps). I'm guessing it's out of warranty?
In your second para you say "All was working nicely, until it died, and wouldn't boot at all." At that point was it completely dead like it is now, or is that only since you've had the HDD out again?
It may well be toast, or it might be hung up on something [i]and[/i] have a screen failure, so, to return to the external monitor, you often have to enable the external output with a function key combo.
For example, quite commonly Fn key plus one of the F1 - F10 keys to cycle through the display options.