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#1
Lost hard drive ?
My computer is an HP, 3 years old, Pavillion 6207 5 GB memory, 500 GB hard drive, Windows 7 64 bit.
Everything was working fine. I installed TurboTax 2012. The next day I booted up, all OK. I went out about 10:00 AM and came back about noon, leaving the computer on as customary.
I was off line. I tried to restart and it would not boot up. Instead I got an HP logo on the monitor. I called HP tech support and was on the phone for 2 hours. They had me open the computer and switch two plug in's in reverse position on the hard drive. One is flat, back 2 conductor. The other is multiple wires all different colors. No results, couldn't boot. They said my hard drive wasn't working and proposed a new hard drive. Unfortunately they Mickey Moused around on the price changing it back and forth so I declined.
I set up an older, backup HP Pavilion Slimline3037c TVCP with Windows Vista. It works but slow. Then moved the problem computer to a work table, hooked it up and tried to boot. Same old, would not open windows. However, my mouse works, my keyboard works, my monitor works. I can run through some various diagnostics and other items just fine. I loaded a Windows 7 update disc and tried to install it. It did come on screen and tried to install. All the colors were there, the Windows logo, the screen items changed. It did everything but boot up. It asked me to select language, location which I did and then it tried to install, but wouldn't proceed asking for some boot disc or some such thing.
Now my question: If all of this activity on monitor is so visible, and by all indications things seem to be working, could all of this occur if my hard drive had crashed ? In the diagnoistics it did say there was no contact with the hard drive. Is it a hard drive or a software problem ?
Some background: Last year I installed Turbotax on the same computer. The Federal worked fine. But the State was a problem and created other problems. I never could complete my state return. In fact it conflictsd with Adobe Reader and has not been fixed. This year just one day after I installed Turbo Tax, in less than 24 hours my computer won't boot !!!! Quite a coincidence !!!
What's wrong ?