I have a Compaq CQ50-115nr. I bought it online for pretty cheap. The listing says the HDD is bad, which is fine, I have a ton of those sitting around. I get the laptop, rpl the hdd, it still won’t recognize it, disk read error. I assume it is the SATA port, yank the hdd and throw it in an external case and figure I will boot to usb. Same thing. I try the hdd on my regular computer and it has Linux on it.
I am having trouble even getting this laptop to do the same thing twice. One time it will boot to the WIndows cd, go through the initial loading files portion and then pop up an error (trying to get 0x code), another time it will go to the disk read error again, and sometimes it just sits there and has a blinking cursor until I shut it off.
So far I have tried:
1. taking out the ram chips 1 by 1 and trying in different slots
2. Windows xp, vista and 7 (the xp disk wont even spin up, but is filthy so…)
3. put a new hdd in
4. tried different usb ports
5. crying and punching a pillow (I rent so hitting a wall is a no go)
6. resetting cmos
7. resetting bios
8. booting up to a diagnostics cd and running tests (doesnt find the hdd so those tests are pretty short)
9. booting to a live cd (only worked once or twice, and I was so shocked didnt think to try anything, just sat there looking at the screen)
Any help or suggestions (or random insults) would be appreciated. I want to flash the BIOS and update to the newest version, but the HP website says it is some utility and I have to have Windows installed to use it?!
