Laptop faulty

GunJack

yes, but if it's still plugged into the mobo and faulty it can prevent bios access..

bluesnake

notbritishgas wrote: »

I have just received an external hard drive caddy in order to retrieve some photos etc from the drive but the hard drive is not recognised when put in the caddy, no noise or anything.

The drive caddy gas its own controller which may configure the drive using different translation parameters

So I presume the drive may be faulty and causing the original fault, am I correct?

not impossible, but doubt very much the drive will cause a black screen. However it may cause your computer to hang, but eventually should time out and you should get writing on your screen.

Now to the question, the drive is a 160gb SATA drive. Can I put in any 2.5 inch drive as long as it is SATA.

having not seen the caddy, yes so long as they are both sata devices.

you are not trying to boot the caddy off your laptop? you are using a separate computer?

Many laptops have a 3 way display feature. By pressing the monitor button on the keyboard you get on some laptop screen only, laptop screen+ external screen, and external screen only. Make sure yours is not external screen only. Take some beers around to a friend who has an external monitor to be sure

notbritishgas

bluesnake wrote: »

The drive caddy gas its own controller which may configure the drive using different translation parameters

Do not understand this, are you saying the caddy will alter the drive in any way.

you are not trying to boot the caddy off your laptop? you are using a separate computer?

Yes I was trying to check the drive using USB on my desktop Win 7 machine.I presume it should show as another drive in "My Computer"? when plugging in the caddy to the USB I do not even get the beep that normally happens when a USB device is plugged in.

Many laptops have a 3 way display feature. By pressing the monitor button on the keyboard you get on some laptop screen only, laptop screen+ external screen, and external screen only. Make sure yours is not external screen only. Take some beers around to a friend who has an external monitor to be sure

I have tried connecting the VGA output to an external monitor with the same results.

Thanks for trying to help.

bluesnake

notbritishgas wrote: »

I have tried connecting the VGA output to an external monitor with the same results.

Thanks for trying to help.

I too then would think ram.

notbritishgas

bluesnake wrote: »

I too then would think ram.

I have just taken both ram modules out and powered on the laptop with the same results, fan starts, dvd clicks, screen remains black.
No beeps to indicate lack of ram.

50Twuncle

notbritishgas wrote: »

I have just taken both ram modules out and powered on the laptop with the same results, fan starts, dvd clicks, screen remains black.
No beeps to indicate lack of ram.

See post #9 above.....

bluesnake

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/64292-35-toshiba-satellite-l305d-s5900-screen-completely-blank-quit

it is the best I can do at the mo.

notbritishgas

bluesnake wrote: »

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/64292-35-toshiba-satellite-l305d-s5900-screen-completely-blank-quit

it is the best I can do at the mo.

Thanks for all the help.
Looks as if it will be a replacement laptop as per 50Twunkle's experience.

50Twuncle

notbritishgas wrote: »

Thanks for all the help.
Looks as if it will be a replacement laptop as per 50Twunkle's experience.

You can take out the hard drive and using a cheap USB caddy - save any data to the new device !!
Its a shame that laptops are so hard to fix - they all use different components and once down are often unfixable.

NiftyDigits

Quite possibly the Power Management chip. Can be replaced by four inexpensive capacitors.