[Jamco]

HP Pavillion dv8000 Laptop. Power's up, HP splash screen (ESC - Boot Order and F10 - Setup Menu work fine) then blinking cursor. BIOS tools - Hard drive test- HD Failed. Tried booting to CD, nothing happens. CD makes 3 seconds of noise. Blinking cursor. Removed battery and HD. Re-seated RAM. Same thing. Tried factory restore CD, ubuntu, XP copies etc... Wish it could boot to USB FLash. CD Drive is proprietary and I don't have one to swap out. What are the chances that the HD and CD drives failed. By the way the HD that failed the BIOS test seems OK in a USB HD Enclosure hook up to my desktop. The last thing that I have not tried (suggested on HP.com) re-seat the CPU.

I don't think its RAM, the CPU or the PSU is causing the problem. What's left? The motherboard? Laptop has sat on a desk for the last two years. No rough use and it died while on.

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Sound like it could be a ram issue. I would suggest running memtest (a linux based live cd). To do this download the ISO for memtest86 from http://www.memtest86.com/download.html on a secondary machine. You will need a program capable of burning .ISO files. If you do not have a program capable, you can download ImgBurn for free at http://imgburn.com. Burn memtest to a CD and boot from the CD on the laptop.
Let memtest run overnight, it will clearly state if there are errors.

If memtest shows no errors, I would suggest hooking the HD in your laptop up to another computer via a USB/IDE cable (you can pick one up at Newegg or other online retailers) and see if you are able to access it or even see it in disk management (run>diskmgmt.msc).

If you can not access your HD on a secondary computer, and memtest shows no errors. I would agree that motherboard is at fault.

Hope this helps.

Link to USB to IDE cable for external use of internal drives:
Newegg: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16812232002

[ChevyManUSA]

Sound like it could be a ram issue. I would suggest running memtest (a linux based live cd). To do this download the ISO for memtest86 from http://www.memtest86.com/download.html on a secondary machine. You will need a program capable of burning .ISO files. If you do not have a program capable, you can download ImgBurn for free at http://imgburn.com. Burn memtest to a CD and boot from the CD on the laptop.
Let memtest run overnight, it will clearly state if there are errors.

If memtest shows no errors, I would suggest hooking the HD in your laptop up to another computer via a USB/IDE cable (you can pick one up at Newegg or other online retailers) and see if you are able to access it or even see it in disk management (run>diskmgmt.msc).

If you can not access your HD on a secondary computer, and memtest shows no errors. I would agree that motherboard is at fault.

Hope this helps.

Link to USB to IDE cable for external use of internal drives:
Newegg: http://www.newegg.co...N82E16812232002