General Dead hard drive question

[dogsipod]

Here's my situation.  My g/f schoolmate told me her computer stopped working.  It is a compaq persario r3000.  I don't know the RAM.  It has a AMD 3300, i think.  Basically it won't boot up.  When turned on the screen with the big compaq design comes up and you are given the options to either change the boot order or enter the set-up screen.  Instead of going to the xp loading screen it goes black.  It doesn't turn off, the screen is still powered just not displaying anything.  However the machine is completely silent.  I guessed that the hard drive had died or wasn't been "seen" by the computer.  But just incase I tried using my knoppix live cd to see if it was a windows problem.  It read the cd and started to load but then died.  I assumed that it was because knoppix (or the version I was using) might require more RAM than the machine had.  So i used a DSL-live cd and it worked.  It brought up the desktop and looked just like it should.  I could not mount the hard drive at all.  It was like it wasn't there.  And the machine was totally silent, which.  This further comfirmed my idea the it was a hard drive problem.  I aked the owner about it and was told that the computer didn't exhibit any common hard drive failure symptoms (no grinding, or clicking, or inceasing sound).  She said that it wen from normal to unable to start up over-night.  My question is this: is it possible that whatever cord connects the hard drive to motherboard (sorry if that doesn't make sense i know more about desktops than notebooks) is lose or fried?  And if so is this fixable without losing the computer and/or info on hard drive.  The laptop is still under warranty but I would assume that if she sent it into compaq they would just replace the Hard drive with out trying to get the info off.

Thanks in advance

[GX1_Man]

First off, good for you for trying a Linux LiveCD!

The hard drive is indeed connected similarly to a desktop, just smaller. The only thing you may be able to manipulate is the connector from the motherboard to the drive itself.

Is the hard drive seen in the BIOS? If so, you could try running the free diagnostics from the hard drive maker's site, or SeaTools from the Seagate site if not sure.

Backing up the data across a network, or to a CD/DVD would be the best possible thing, because they absolutely will not save your data when replacing a hard drive. You could also get an adapter and slave it into a desktop machine IF the drive is not totally FUBAR'ed.

If the data is critical you could try a data recovery service, but that is expen$ive.

[dogsipod]

Thanks for the advice.  I think I going with the adapter slave desktop method, since I have some adapters at the office.  However I have a feeling that the drive is totally gone.  Luckly if it is the data on the drive for the most part is no critical.  And no the hard drive is not seen in the BIOS.

[GX1_Man]

Sounds dead, then.