Are you able to run chkdsk repairs on the hdd by booting from an installer disk?

Tried booting from the Win 7 disc and using the command prompt. Chkdsk gave an unspecified error and the startup repair said it couldn't complete.

tried that FIXMBR thing and the other one I can't remember?

No. If it is trying to boot but getting stuck would that work? Worth a try. What's the other one? Might try another boot CD or putting the HDD from the laptop in my computer and see if I can scan it on there.

Then I'm guessing either the physical disk, or the partition map is hosed. All that's left is to attempt data recovery from a linux boot cd, or put it in an external enclosure and try to mount it on another pc. You could then try to reformat the disk, in my experience it is probably a waste of time.

That was my guess. I did boot a random Linux live CD I had lying around and could access the pictures on there so hopefully the stuff they want I can get off.

The other one is fixboot I think.

Bootfixyou!

Will it fix my boot? It keeps dropping down on my head unexpectedly.

Keep them by the door, like any normal person would. Putting them on top of the wardrobe is just asking for it.

Definitely dead HDD. I used my USB to SATA cable (with my PATA USB dock providing the power (I think I need a proper SATA dock)) and Windows immediately said there is a problem with the drive. It's trying to do a scan and just clicking every now and then. Maybe I should stop it in case I break it more.

It's made your writing go all funny. Have you got one of those sci-fi viruses that can make the 'leap' from silicon to humans?

at least it didn't affect his sig

what Xen said I think 

You're unlikely to 'break it more', it's probably the/an actuator arm that's fucked (or more accurately, stuck). But it could also be the pcb is shorted somewhere. Or the partition table is so messed up it literally doesn't know where to start.

I've had some luck with getting dead drives to 'randomly' restart after repeated efforts over several days (i.e. try it ten times in a row, leave it). If you do get it to spin up, you should treat it as the likely last chance you'll ever have to recover the data.

Oh no. I think I may have been infected by a dodgy HDD :O Will I end up in the computer like the lawnmower man? Should I run a virus scan on myself?

Should have said mostly dead. Or dying. The drives appear in Windows and I can browse them, get some stuff off them but there are obviously bad parts of the drive that can't be read now.

It's back to working order. Downloaded a Dell OEM Win 7 ISO. I expected to enter a key but it didn't ask for one.

It took soooo long to complete all the updates. First some updates, reboot, install SP1, reboot, more updates, reboot, even more updates, reboot, and I think there were even more. Why can't it do them all in one go. Slow laptop too so it took ages.

Surprise surprise, she finally came to pick up the laptop last night. Just paid for the part.

There's some site that bundles all updates up to latest, for free. Can't remember the url but it's supposed to install everything in one go.

I got the one for xp many moons ago but never bothered with it. I'm pretty sure they do/did win7 too.