Hard drive not recognized.

Well, my Windows 7 laptop has been dead for a while, but now I want to see if it can be fixed.
The laptop no longer recognizes the hard drive. I checked in the BIOS settings, and it shows there being no hard drive whatsoever. I opened the laptop up and made sure nothing was broken; nothing was. I pulled the hard drive out, and neither the hard drive or the connectors are showing any external damage.

My theory is that it's suffered some sort of internal damage. It was already giving me bad sector warnings and BSODs before the incident happened.

Another theory popped into my head. The motherboard might be going out, as one of the RAM chips that came default with it started causing it to freeze, but removing it would allow the computer to run properly. But one thing that goes against this idea is that I can still run Linux distros off of my USB drive.

Do you think either of these are the cause? Or do you all have any other ideas that might explain it and/or make it run off the hard drive again?

Oh yea. Specs:
Dell Latitude D600.
Hitachi Travelstar 40GB 5400rpm HDD

I'll look for the motherboard sometime soon.

Thanks for your support in advance.

Well...

You could have bad memory and you could have a bad drive. Do you have an optical drive? If yes, boot your notebook up with a "live" version of Ubuntu, Knoppix or similar program.

Knoppix Linux Boot CD, Download Disk and Documents, Discuss, Get Help

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Test your computer. If is seems okay, then it's time to test your other memory module out. If it's good fine. Otherwise order another memory module.

My sister-in-law's notebook had a bad drive. It's still sitting on my desk. I replaced it and she's good to go.

It's just a process of elimination. First make sure your notebook works. Buy your memory from Crucial.com. Hard drive from newegg.com

I have run Linux on the system, and it runs correctly. I've figured out already that the second memory slot is bad. Right now, I'm only concerned about the hard drive, and I don't have the money to replace it.

I'm really hoping for some DIY hardware/software solution that would let me not have to replace it.

Prisoner said:

I have run Linux on the system, and it runs correctly. I've figured out already that the second memory slot is bad. Right now, I'm only concerned about the hard drive, and I don't have the money to replace it.

I'm really hoping for some DIY hardware/software solution that would let me not have to replace it.

If you don't see the drive in your bios, then it's toast. Sorry.

Dammit. Okay, thanks. I guess I'll try to scrounge up the money for a new one.

I'll try that. I hope my dad doesn't get mad.... hehe.