DOA after update

I working on my friends HP Pavillion dv7-1245dx Laptop, he said he was going to shut his computer down like normal, but Windows prompted him for an update so he started the update process.

The problem is when he came back to use his machine, the battery was dead, and when he plugged it in and tried to boot the screen stays blank... No blue HP BIOS screen, or anything on the screen besides a blank/black screen of death.

I have tried hard resetting the machine buy taking the battery and CMOS battery's out but that didn't help. I also tried to use the Windows 7 install/repair DVD, but that didn't help, the disk spins for a second and stops. I also tried plugging the laptop into an external monitor, but that didn't work either.

Any suggestions???

I am going to try replacing the hard drive with an extra one I have. I need to hunt around to see if I have any so-dimm ram that will fit the slots. If I cant fix this machine, I going to recovery the data on the hard drive. Then add the laptop to my collection of crapped out spare parts machines...

Do not know how to help,

But there are two possibilities I would think of.
First, probably the I/O chip is dead.
Second, your friend was probably updating BIOS and got it crashed in the middle of the process.

That the only things I could guess.

Kevin

I might try a Ubuntu Live cd to test the hardware.

It keeps kinda shutting itself down. I press the power button, the fans spins for 5 seconds and then it stops, its as if its falling POST.

I tried different ram, hard drive, and I disconnected the NIC but nothing is working. I think its time to try to recover the data on the hard drive and order a grave stone.

Sounds to me like a system I had the other day - I gave up in the end, and filed it in the round cabinet :) - mine had a slightly worse history, though, having been dropeed and the screen replaced,,, never recovered properly.

From what you say, the fan spins on boot? - but there's no POST screen? - is there any Beep?
Is there any sign of disk activaity by way of indicateot lights (if there are any)? If there's no disk activaity, it sounds to me as if the BIOS or CPU is borked, and the system is toast - either because of an overheat, or physical damage.

The fan spins for a few seconds, makes noise like its starting, but stops in like 5 seconds, no beeps. all on the lights on the key board light up. I was able to extract the data from the hard drive.

It does sound to me like a hardware problem of some kind - and there's nothing we can do about that here.

Since this is a laptop, this kind of this is usually more expenssive to repair than buying a new system (especially if you can sell the working parts through eBay or wherever).

Your the second person who said to sell on eBay. I wonder how much it might be worth? I all ready grabbed the 320 gb hard drive for my self.

The hard drive and the screen are the most valuable parts.
Someone may want the motherboard, but the value will be very much limited, as it's not in a working state (someone may want to try it, but they aren't going to be prepared to pat anything like the value of a known-working one)
the rest is likely to be pennies per item.