Weird Hard-drive problem. (Currently can't boot from the harddrive)

[hpdarkman40]

Information:  HP laptop, model G?? (Can't boot to find out)
3Gs of RAM
288G Hd
Windows 7 home premium



I have a laptop that throws up this error at boot:

boot device not found 030

Normally I'd thing, bad harddrive.

BUT, wwhen I tried to recover the drive, I found there isn't anything wrong with it.  If I boot from a live cd, I can see all of the files, not damaged at all. (Making backups just in case).

The drive seems completely healthy, aside from that when I try to boot it doesn't detect the drive.  Although it used too.  And ideas?

Thank you.

Edit: I've tried using the Geek Squad MRI (Won't load MRI PE)
I've tried Windows 7 Ultimate install disc.  Gets stuck during loading.
I've tried Hirens Boot CD, and was able to see the drive perfectly useing Gparted.
It's trying to load a Windows 7 32-bit repair disc at the moment.  Stuck at the loading bar. the PE one, not the Loading Windows Files one.  (Drive has Windows 7 Home Premium installed, 32-bit)

I also have:
Trinity Rescue Kit
Windows 8 install disc
Multiple different XP install discs
Backtrack 5 Live CD
and Kali Linux Live CD
on hand if you think any of those could help.

I would consider myself a semi-advanced computer user. (Concieted.)  So if you don't feel like going into detail about how to do something, I'm sure I'll manage, might save yourself sometime.

[Geek-9pm]

Welcome to CH.
Beg or borrow another Hard Drive for your computer.
You have already done most of what you would find here.

It is not as rare as one might think, but hard drives can be fickle. After testing and probing, they sometimes fix themselves. It might be just a dirty spindle that  just now got free. Only a a five percent loss in spindle sped is enough to make a  HDD act funny. Yes, HDDs have servo controlled speed, but dirt or gum in the bearings will slow it down. It happens.

Use of a new or trusted  HDD helps isolate the issue to either the HDD or the motherboard.  You can always use a spare HDD as a external backup. So  that is why I say get another HDD and try again. Then later run diagnostics on the old HDD, after you have you computer working good.

[Lisa_maree]

I would  test the memory in the laptop with memtest from any of the diagnostic disks you have.
Where windows and the data is on a hard drive is not always where the boot sector is, there maybe bad sectors in the first few sectors of the hard drive. to check this use a media test if this is available on your diagnostic disks. Or HDtune pro if it is connected to a windows PC.


Lisamaree

   

[hpdarkman40]

I forgot to add that I had already ran memtests.

After some tinkering, I just got this message. The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.  Further than I've gotten so far.

Update. After inserting my Windows 7 Installation disc and going to the repait options (again) (This time loading)
It's stuck endlessly loading the System recovery options. (See picture below)     For now, I'll just keep it loading.



Full sized image: http://www.freeimagehosting.net/t/z5bkz.jpg

[Lisa_maree]

Hi

Have you checked the hard drive media as I still think it could be  bad sectors in the first 100mb.

Lisamaree 

[hpdarkman40]

I'm having trouble opening in any sort of hard disk tester. Not even a partition manager.  I can't even read the files from a file explorer at the moment.  I get an unknown HAL error.
I'm trying to load Geek Squad MRI again.
The harddrive is a toshiba by the way. The only tools I have are for western digital and seagate.

EDIT: Using Trinity Rescue Kit, I get a message that the disc contains an unclean filesystem.

[hpdarkman40]

I would like to add this finaly thing I've noticed. Which is making this impossible.
I can't run any sort of windows environment. Live cd or not.

So no Windows PE systems will work. So Running chkdsk as I was hoping is next to impossible.

[Computer_Commando]

SeaTools for DOS
http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/201271en

[patio]

The HDD is dying...
Replace it.