Laptop crashed, won't sense hard drive. Win 8.1.

[Maimai]

Hi!

Had this Lenovo Y50-70 Touch since June last year. It's been generally well behaved, but just tonight it crashed and will no longer start, nor sense the hard drive in the BIOS. Does this mean my drive is kaput? Also, sadly I've moved since I got it and don't have my USB CD/DVD or boot disk. I've also tested an external, which the laptop sensed, so I'm just assuming I need to take it in to get the HD replaced? Thanks for your time!

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, Maimai.

If the BIOS does not recognize the drive, the most probable cause is a faulty drive or a faulty cable/SATA port. You could try the HDD with a different computer, to see if the same thing happens and if it does, go ahead and replace the HDD. On the other hand if the drive is recognized when you connect it to a different computer, you should test it with its manufacturer's diagnostic tool, to see if anything out of the ordinary pops-up.

As for the DVD that came with the laptop, I guess you could contact the laptop manufacturer's customer support for further assistance.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[Maimai]

Hey there, Maimai.

If the BIOS does not recognize the drive, the most probable cause is a faulty drive or a faulty cable/SATA port. You could try the HDD with a different computer, to see if the same thing happens and if it does, go ahead and replace the HDD. On the other hand if the drive is recognized when you connect it to a different computer, you should test it with its manufacturer's diagnostic tool, to see if anything out of the ordinary pops-up.

As for the DVD that came with the laptop, I guess you could contact the laptop manufacturer's customer support for further assistance.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

Thanks so much for replying so quickly!

Sadly I'm not too experienced with taking apart laptops. How could I go about connecting my laptop's HDD to another computer?

Additionally, I should add that recently my disk had been appearing at around 60-90% within task manager. I'm guessing that might have been the cause.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

You shouldn't open the HDD bay if you don't know how to do it, so that you don't damage anything. You should have instructions on how to do that in your laptop User Manual. If you don't feel confident enough, you'd better take it to a computer service shop and have the guys there do it. They should be able to test the drive for you as well and let you know if it is the cause for the problem.

High disk usage can be caused by a lot of things and 60-90% is not that uncommon depending on what you are doing at the moment.

 

[Hyboria]

It's super-duper easy to take laptops apart. You need to unscrew all of the screws in the bottom of your laptop and *carefully* pry off the plastic underneath which was previously screwed in place by the screws you removed.

Once you've taken the bottom cover off you should be able to easily locate the hard drive (assuming you know what one looks like). Check it for any more screws that might be holding it in place, and unscrew those if you find any. You'll need to slide the hard drive out of its socket, so try and do so without pulling the drive away from the mainboard.

Once you've removed the hard drive you'll need a caddy to be able to plug the hard drive into another computer. You should be able to see then whether the hard drive is faulty or if it was something else.

Tip: Make sure you unscrew every screw in order. If you unscrew one and the next one appears to be a different length, I normally arrange the screws spatially to represent which hole they go back in to.

Edit: Here's a handy video! Just don't take everything apart, only the hard drive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kX7sewRnY14