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    Pavilion dv4 wont find hdd. Help?

    Discussion in 'HP' started by shadedurza, Jul 15, 2010.

  1. shadedurza

    shadedurza Notebook Consultant

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    One of my friends has an hp pavilion dv4 and when I boot it it comes up with a message to "please insert a bootable device press any key". When I go to boot manager all it sees is the CD/DVD drive. So I boot from a windows 7 x64 disc (same as her OS) and it still doesn't see a hdd. I have removed the hdd cover and made sure the drive is securely in place countless times.

    Any ideas why this laptop won't see its hard drive?
     
    shadedurza, Jul 15, 2010
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  2. brianstretch

    brianstretch Notebook Virtuoso

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    The drive is probably dead. Try hooking up the HD to another machine with a USB-to-SATA adapter. Remove the laptop battery, remove the HD, remove the proprietary adapter from the HD's SATA connector (and don't lose it!). If you don't have a USB-to-SATA adapter you can hook up the drive to a desktop PC since both desktop and laptop SATA drives use the same connectors.
     
    brianstretch, Jul 16, 2010
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  3. shadedurza

    shadedurza Notebook Consultant

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    I think I may have lost the proprietary adapter... I hooked it into my desktop computer and it can see the drive and files on but I can not boot from it. Is there a picture anywhere?

    Can anyone tell me what im looking for here?
     
    shadedurza, Jul 19, 2010
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  4. brianstretch

    brianstretch Notebook Virtuoso

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    HP PartSurfer may list them. Not sure. They vary from model to model. But if you don't have the adapter you should see that the SATA connector on the drive won't make contact with the connector in the HP drive bay.
     
    brianstretch, Jul 21, 2010
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