Windows 7 Crash and Clean Reinstall issues

Hi, new guy here. I've been having some pretty major computer issues over the past couple of days. I own an Asus U47a laptop, which I managed to drop off a table onto the floor. This resulted in some very minor damage to the case but it still worked fine, until I restarted it. Windows was unable to boot and it went in recovery mode. I have had this issue once before with this laptop (minus the dropping) and I attempted to use the recovery partition to reinstall windows as I did previously. However this did not work; the recovery process said it could not locate files.

At this point I decided to use a windows 7 DVD to reinstall. I burned a copy off the internet and used diskpart to clean the hard drive (I have everything backed up). Unfortunately this didn't work either, as it told me I was missing a windows driver. I attempted another install and managed to get to the password creation screen before it bluescreened on me and I had to start again. I have tried multiple ISO images and multiple DVDs but I cannot seem to get this to work, every time it tells me I'm missing a driver or kernel.

I've tried to look for some answers on what might be wrong and I'm leaning towards bad hard drive, as my RAM checks out fine and I've tried different install disks. For what it's worth I ran a smart tool last week and it indicated that I had a few corrupt sectors on this drive so I guess trouble was brewing anyway. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

I would Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure

Is the HDD detected in BIOS setup when you boot into it using the key given on first screen?

If so test the HDD using bootable CD burned using Windows Image Burner from Theog's links above.

If it tests OK then boot into System Recovery Options to run Startup Repair a few times, or burn a new ISO for your licensed version from Steps 1 and 2 of Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 since the error can also mean a bad installer. You can rescue your files first using Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

If not, physically reinstall the HDD following illustrated steps in your Manual found on the Asus Support Downloads webpage for your model, or by googling the model + replace HDD, or + Disassemble.

Ok so I tried to run the hard drive diagnostic. It seemed to be going ok for about 30 seconds then got hung up on "detecting PCI IDE controller 0 - master" and when it brought up a list of devices found, there was nothing there. So it couldn't find the drive.

But is the HD detected in BIOS setup at all?

If not then reinstall it to see if you can get it to be detected.

If so try another diagnostics CD like Seagate Seatools or Partition Wizard Partition surface test
followed by Partition Wizard Check File System.


Using Partition Wizard you can also post back a camera snap of the drive map and listings which will tell us a lot, confirm the 100mb SysReserved (preferred) or C is Partition Marked Active then run Partition Wizard Rebuild MBR Video Help followed by Startup Repair - Run up to 3 Separate Times

Drive shows up in BIOS but I can't get any of these programs to recognize it. I reinstalled it, it's hooked up properly.

Did you try the PW CD?

If nothing will recognize it then I would try it in another PC, or slaved using an adapter cable to try to run diagnostics.

Otherwise replace the HDD.