Dell Inspiron 1501 cannot detect hard drive

I think I got this problem fixed:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=248604

But now, my bios doesn't detect my hard drive. Is my motherboard indeed fooked? Or is there something else I'm not trying? I took it apart and reseated the hard drive and it seems to be installed correctly.

I forgot to mention, I bought a new hard drive and still have the same problem.

 

If the BIOS does not recognize it, either the drive or the motherboard has damage.

 

Is the wire loose or smthng?BIOS should see it other times.

Do you see it in the boot list?

 

Do you have a desktop nearby?
If so, you can use a sata power supply and sata cable to test to see if the drive is picked up in your desktop.
If the drive is an ata based drive, you will need a 2.5" to 3.5" ata adaptor. This way, you can use the desktop via a usb hub to get the data off of the harddrive and onto another computer.
If the drive does not power up, than you need a new harddrive.

Good luck,

K-TRON

 

Edited for leaving out that I tried a new hard drive too.

Would an external be a good solution?

 

it's not inthe boot list. It's not in the bios.

 

If a new drive also fails than it looks like the motherboard has taken a hit from the spill. There is not much you can do.
Have you looked for electrically damaged parts?
Take the system apart, and try looking for fried electronics around where the harddrive plugs in. If something is burned than you are out of luck.
However, if the system powers on and the drive is not picked up, there could be some kind of small short somewhere on the sata or ata bus. The only way to know for sure, is by using a voltmeter/ohmmeter to test each part of the circuit. One of them must have shorted for the drive to not be recognized.

K-TRON

 

I have a multimeter, would that work? Do I plug in the laptop to test it? What ranges am I looking for, and where do I touch?

 

Well it would probably be easier to tell you, if you posted a picture of the board.
If you do not know what to look for, this may be hard.

Most likely you may not be able to get the system running, unless you replace a chip on the motherboard.

My suggestion is to contact this laptop repair facility,
http://www.pelltechnology.com/LaptopRepairRequest.asp

The problem is most likely from a piece of circuitry on the board, which would take professional precise instruments to replace.
These guys are pretty good, they do not charge you if they cannot fix it, so you have nothing to loose.

K-TRON

 

Here's my motherboard in the area of the HD:



And a look at the slot where it fits:

 

udbrky, here is an image I edited, to show you what to look for.



I would test the black square voltage regulators with the voltmeter. Put the voltmeter to the resistance setting, and if the regulator works, you should hear a beep come from the voltmeter. Just plug in the ac adaptor, but do not turn the system on.
Put one prong to one of the leads to the regulator, and one to another lead. If a beep comes from the voltmeter, the device still works properly. Do this for all of the voltage regulators.
The other parts can be serviced by eye.

I hope this helps,

K-TRON

 

Ok, the SATA chip looks fine. The cmos battery doesn't have any rust. I got a beep on all the voltage regulators - it said shrt on the multimeter, is that good or bad? I had it on the "open" selection. Sorry for all the questions, this is a first for me.

 

the beep means that the voltage regulator is providing a resitance. Your readings, and the beeps are all fine.
If everything is okay, and looks fine, the only thing I can think of is:
is there any dust in the sata connector?,
and are you sure that you are installing the drive correctly. IE, do you physically feel the drive going into the sata connector?

If you cant get it to work, then I recommend contacting Dell, or using the service which I recommended, but only if your system is out of warranty.

K-TRON

 

I just cleaned the sata connectors - where the HD plugs in and where the chip connects to the board. I used a microfiber cloth and water/alcohol there, so I'm going to let it dry.

 

I put the HD in before putting it all back together so I could make sure it's fitting in right. It still isn't reading it.

I only have one drive installed, so it's not that there's two.

I give up I guess. I'm going to take it in and see if the mobo is damaged, or if I'm just screwing something up when putting it back together. I hate giving up, but this defeated me. Thanks for all your help.