[URGENT] Computer won't Boot!!! (HDD Failure?)

After getting off a flight from JFK International Airport to China, my laptop refuses to boot properly. I took these two pictures of the errors and im posting from my uncles MBP... (irony).

Anyways, i hope you guys can help me figure out what went wrong. I suspect a Harddrive error (as diagnosed by the laptop) but I'm not sure if it's fixable.

If anyone can help me out, thanks in advance!







^Pics^

 

I know you're in panic mode but please resize those pics.


Start-up Test Hard Disk 1 Quick 303 The hard disk drive may have failed. Contact HP Support for further assistance.

 

Could try reseating the cables, one might have come loose.

 

Haha sorry but i have no means of resizing it right now... my camera just takes pictures that large.

I cannot contact HP support (nor will they be any help) because I'm out of the country. We just called the local HP support store and they said they aren't allowed to make repairs on American-ordered computers.

I mean, I'll try to reseat it (thanks) but I'm not going to have my hopes up.

 

Since it said it couldn't detect both drives it sounds like your primary didn't survive the trip. You can try a restore if you kept the restore partition in tact but I think that drive is RIP.

 

The recovery partition is dead too D:

Damn, so that means i need to buy a new drive then?
Since i'm in Shanghai, i have the ability to obtain a new drive. Would putting a new drive in myself (perhaps an SSD!) void the warranty? If so, is it worth waiting to go back to the US and then claiming warranty on this P.O.S.? lol

 

I would contact HP US and explain the situation to them, and see if they could suggest a repair facility in Shanghai.

 

The recovery partition is dead because it's just a logical partition on the same physical drive as your C:, which is as you've noted, kaput.

If you were to get a new drive in Shanghai, you would also need to get yourself a copy of Windows 7 to install on it (or download a copy and run without a key in trial mode until you get back to the US), and sift through the interwebs finding all the necessary drivers.

Not sure how long you're in China for, or the purpose, but that seems like a lot of time, money, and effort if you're out there on vacation. Sucks as it does since you did lug it all the way out there and it is now a glorified paper weight, I'd probably wait to bring it home and get HP to deal with it. Assuming you aren't gone for too long that is.

You're in another country, go enjoy it...

 

I'm out here for 3 weeks =X
For the most part, thanks to these forums, the drivers are located in the owners thread (THANK YOU NotebookReview <3).

Assuming that I'm willing to do this, would an SSD be a good choice>
And, I do have the ability to boot from USB (right?) so finding an american copy of W7 shouldn't be a problem.

 

Yes you can boot from a USB. Use the Windows 7 USB/DVD download tool to mount the Windows 7 iso file on the USB drive. I think it's F8 to get to the custom boot menu for an HP but don't quote me on it. An SSD is always a good choice but I don't know if you can format the SSD, or any hard drive, from the Windows USB drive. Whenever I've used it the drive has always been formatted. If you have a Windows 7 disk it does it all for you, formats the drive then installs Windows. Although it's the same image file that's on the actual DVD. I don't know....it can't hurt to try and if it doesn't work I'm assuming you have a Windows DVD at home so might just have to wait

 

Seeing that it's china, I can have the disk formatted after purchase on site, so no worries. I'm bringing the laptop into some professionals tomorrow to have a final diagnosis on what happened. The only problem that remains is obtaining an english version of W7 in China... which is quite a feat in of itself.

I'll keep you posted!

 

Bag3l, weren't you the one who was super excited about the dv6tqe before it was even released after the sandy bridge screw up? It certainly sucks to see a fellow dv6t user have this happen. Mine is currently having lockups and sporadic freezes. I have almost lost all hope of isolating the cause of the problem. I'll probably be calling "HP India" real soon about this...

 

Images from the first post have been resized. Use the [ IMAGE=### ][ /IMAGE ] tag to have thumbnails of your screenshots posted instead, with "###" being the width of the thumbnail in pixels (and without the spaces).

This should be useful to you if you need to post more screenshots.

 

This was the first thing I did. HP China will not make repairs on US purchased units, pretty ironic if you ask me...

Yeah... what a let down right? I've been getting BSOD errors due to the ATI graphics driver errors...

 

Update:

When attempting a fresh install, I stumbled onto something quite interesting.

Disk 0 Partition 4: HP_TOOLS

Wow HP... just wow. At the moment, it also refuses to delete itself. The mouse has been spinning for about 10 minutes already.

 

Some people claimed HP_TOOLS partition was needed for BIOS updaets on the Envy 14. I don't remember if that was verified or not.