I have a Cyberpower Inc laptop. It was working perfectly fine one minute (I was playing Enemy Territory, watching movies, loading iPod, etc.). I shut it off and everything was fine.

Or so I thought.

The next morning I woke up and turned it it. Hrmmm, that's weird. The USB mouse and touchpad still work, but the keyboard does.... *Hard shut down*

When I go to turn it back on, it won't get past the post screen, the keyboard is non-functional, and I have no USB devices or a CD in the drive. When I last got into the BIOS, I turned the HDD to boot first, followed by optical drive (Don't ask why, I know it's probably not smart, it's just something I do).

But yeah, now the laptop has been sitting around for a month, collecting dust because my hours are too jacked up to call Cyberpower.

Does this sound like a bunk HDD?

If the keyboard won't even work to let you enter BIOS setup, then I believe it is unlikely to be an HDD problem.

You should be able to remove the HDD (and CD/DVD drive) entirely, and still be able to enter BIOS setup, manipulate settings using the keyboard, etc.

If you have multiple circuit boards (sticks) or RAM, then (with the HDD removed) try booting with the RAM sticks installed only one at a time.


edit to add-
If you do decide to try removing/disconnecting the drives, be careful. The connectors on notebook drives can be delicate. Also, don't forget to follow appropriate ESD (electro-static discharge) handling procedures with the computer and the components.

Thanks for the help, but here's a hell of a fix for you...

You know how they say you shouldn't (or in some cases, should) beat the computer? Well, after a month of it not working (and not really trying to trouble shoot it), I was in the airport going to my new duty station, and I dropped my bag really hard. Not on purpose, my elbow was f**ked up from wrestling a few days prior, but it dropped pretty hard.

"Crap," I thought, "now it will never work."

So I got to my duty station and figured, what the heck, I'll give it one last spin. Let's see what happens.

Sure enough, I plug in the AC Adapter, hit the power button, and it boots up just fine. Like I had just shut it off 5 minutes ago. All my stuff is there, there's no errors, no odd noises.

So let this be a lesson: If you computer stops working, go to the airport with it in a bag, and drop it. It'll work for you.

Kash said:

A few months ago Gerritt proferred the "whack a mole" procedure for fixing HDD drives. It was one of several advanced technology methods proposed at the time.