Question : Problem: Laptop Will Not Boot Up! Hard-Drive seems to be ok.  Need help with troubleshooting.

I have a Dell Inspiron 7000.  I try to boot it up, I hear the hard drive spin up, but nothing comes up on the display: no splash screen, no memory check, nothing. The first thing I try is to plug a monitor into the back of the laptop but no video comes up on the monitor either.

Then, worried about my data, I plug the hard drive from the laptop into the secondary IDE channel on my Desktop.  I didn't set the jumper correctly because the Desktop, thinking the laptop hard drive was the master, Booted The Laptop Hard Drive!! The OS (and programs etc) from my laptop appeared on my desktop monitor.  That tells me the OS is installed correctly.  I also copied all the files off the laptop hard drive onto the desktop hard drive with no problems.  That tells me the hard drive should be working fine.

I tried to boot to a boot disk, nothing.  I tried striking the Escape, F1, and delete keys during startup to go into the BIOS, but that did nothing either.

What other steps can I try to get a definite answer as to whats wrong with this laptop?

Any input would be great, thanks!

Answer : Problem: Laptop Will Not Boot Up! Hard-Drive seems to be ok.  Need help with troubleshooting.

Hi Synapse88,

The fact that you are getting no beep codes at start up is a bad thing. Usually, you get some sort of indication that things are a go - and you are not getting this.

Here is what I would do if I were in your shoes:

- remove all peripherals (HDD, removable CD, FDD Batteries etc) and see if the system POSTS.

If the system still does not POST after being stripped down to the bare essentials, remove the memory from the system - You should definately get a beep code with no memory - if you don't, you have problems.

If you do not get a beep code with all of the memory removed, the next step is to disasemble everything and re-assemble it making sure that everything seats properly - and try to get the thing to POST.

You need a working power supply, system board and processor to get POST beeps, so if you do not get them, try CPU then system board and then PSU (because you have a battery I would not suspect the PSU if the problem also happens when it is running on batteries). If you do not have another unit that you can scavange for parts, fixing a laptop such is this one is usually not worth the time, effort or money that it will take to do so.

Good Luck,

Andy