Hard Disc Not Exist

Question

To start at the beginning; Just under 3 years ago, my ex wife bought my daughter (then 12) an HP G56-105SA.
A year ago my daughter moved back in with me, and brought it with her.
Just the lap-top and power supply. No Recovery discs; no manuals; just the bits she used.
Last week... she had teen-age hissy-fit, because it didn't work... this became MY problem.
Of course, being ancient and obtuse  and a PAIR-RENT...I am probably missing the obviouse, like that it's almost Christmas, and what she really wants is a new i-pad.... but she ent getting one... not off me least ways, so I'm stuck trying to fix this thing, so she can do her home-work, and be doubly ungreatful!
So to the facts.
1/ I started by switching it on.... which resulted in black screen and 'No Bootable Device' message.
2/ Turned PC over, undid HDD cover; removed HDD, and cable; re-seated & replaced; turned on again. No Change.
3/ Removed HDD - Plugged into spare SATA slot on my desk-top.
Curiousely, it threw up four drived;
E: which appeared to be a ghost, with nothing on and capacity of the discs full 250Gb.
F: Which was her C: Operating System partition; aprox 170Mb with all windows directories present and accessible.
M: HP Restore
N: HP Tools
As suspected... her C-Drive (My F) was chocka-block with barely 3% free space.
3.1/ I took my life in my own hands... and deleted six seasons of 'Glee'..... and transfered the less than a dongle sized directory called 'Home Work' to my desk-top. I emptied her recycle bins.
3.2/ I ran disc tools on my (Win XP) desk top; and applied Disc Clean Up. Took a while, and I dont think freed much.
3.3/ I ran disc tools....... and applied Scan Disc, full scan and fix... and 24 hours later it told me it had fixed things!
3.4/ I ran De-Frag... and another 24 hours later.. it looked reletively healthy; with about 40% free space.
4/ Returned Hard disk to Lap-Top.... pressed start.... same black screen! Pressed f2, used diagnostics; got 'Hard disc Not Exist'
5/ Asked Daughter if she had the HP Factory Restore discs..... she looked at me as only a teenager looking at ancient, obtuse, and utterly STOOOPID pair-rent can.... you know, like she had discovered something unsavory on the sole of her shoe, she had never seen before...... with added contempt.
Phone calls and text messages in her bedroom followed; the unhelpful conclusion of which was... "Mum says, you just run Recovery from the Hard Drive" ...  aparently she had argued that actually when teh computer was first switched on, it would have asked to 'make' recovery DVD's.... but aparently her big-brother had sorted that all out, and said you didn't need them, as it was... on the hard drive.... Can ANYONE tell me why I married the woman? I'm SURE there must have been a reason... but for the life of my I cant think what it could have been!
6/ I returned HDD to my desk-top. I found the pdf user manual, and found the 'make restore disc' instructions & tried running the make program on my desk-top.... it refused telling me what I already knew... my desk-top isn't an HP G56!
7/ HASSLED as home-work was now due, and she couldn't print it off my Desk-Top, as I dont have the latest version of MS Office she uses at school..... I went back to basics; pulled Windows 7 install disc from the draw, went to HP support and down-loaded ALL the driver files for an HP G56-105SA... 
8/ WIPED THE LAP-TOP HARD DRIVE - in XP on desk-top, removed all partitions, then re-formatted the disc, ready for 'fresh' install of Windows 7 and 7 alone, without all the HP factory pre-installs.... get it running, and then worry about installing whatever software she wants/needs after seperately; and with bit of luck, without partisions or extraniouse would-you-like-fries-with-that programs cluttering it up; might give a bit more space so takes a bit longer till its clogged with 'glee' again.
9/ Inserted HDD in Lap-Top. Switched on... opened DVD draw; switched off. Inserted Windows 7 disc; switched on.
ALL looked very promicing, and Got windows back-ground, USB mouse, and win 7 install prompts... up to "Select partition to install operating system'.
HDD showed in the drop-down box as 'Disc 0' with full 250Gb available and healthy
BUT message below "Windows 7 cannot install on this divice - Not bootable" clicking for details... said check bios to ensure HDD management enabled.
10/ Switched off, went into bios... NO options for doing anything with HDD as far as I could see; while 'system diagnostics' chucked out error message "Hard disc Not Exist"
11/ Repeated Windows install... and at prompt tried putting in DVD of down-loaded HP Drivers to load a disc controller... told me there were no drivers on the DVD ( they were all executables I presume intended to be run after Windows install)
12/ My 'data' Hard-Drive was sat on teh desk where I had removed it to plug in her lap-top disc. JUST for reference... I removed her Lap-top HDD and plugged my Desk-Top HDD in to see if the lap-top would recognise ANY disk... answer no it didn't.
SO... it would appear that the Lap-Top HDD is 'OK' we have fault on the Lap-Top, which recognises the HDD under windows install... but not under the Bios.
I found this forum looking for hints where to go next, and did find this thread: http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Lockups-Freezes-Hangs/my-laptop-says-my-hard-disk-does-not-exi...
BUT, whils seemingly the same problem... that was fixed by my first intuative check, taking the HDD out and replacing it.... but ent solved this one.
So what next? I'm starting to run out of inspiration... and no chance is she having a new lap-top this christmas!

Answer 1

teflon-mike wrote:
Follow the instructions on this tutorial page to make a DBAN on a usb flash drive that is at least 1GB.
OK, followed instructions; down-loaded and ran executable. Selected DBAN v2.2 from drop down as instructed (only option with DBAN in title); 2nd dialogue asked for ISO file, entered DBAN in download dir; it asked to create, clicked 'y', then selected 4GB USB flash as destination, and 'run'. Went into a command screen, and 'did-stuff' with two error messages; first saying something couldn't be found; second that DBAN 2.2 'not supported'.
Popped dongle into the Lap-top anyway; files were written to it; entered Bios and set Boot order to USB-Floppy first... returned "BootMNGR is Missing" & prompted re-start.... A USB thumbdrive (or flash disk) is not a dongle. That is a different technology for licensing firmware contained in a usb device.
So, tried & failed, BUT.. the lap-top hard drive is 'blanked' It's been scanned, formatted, un-partitioned & reformatted, and shows as a factory fresh HDD would out the packet. So do I really need to use DBAN to 'nuke' it? Yes. it is a good plan to nuke the hard disk. It sounds like you need a different tutorial than the one I provided. 
then do a Windows 7 install.  This time use the Microsoft store's  Windows 7 DVD\USB download utility to make a usb installer.
Thanks; but I dont really want to buy another licence for an operating system (I actually dont much like!) I already have licences for, already have DVD's for, but not bought through Microsofts Down-Load platform so I dont have anything in my purchase history and so would have to buy as if new JUST to get a version that loads through a USB port.. when its loading hapily enough from DVD... just not happy to install to the HDD, its actually recognising, and I'm just as likely, I presume, to get the same problem, of it refusing to install to HDD from a new USB drive version as my existing DVD version, for the expense and trouble.... unless I'm missing a leap in the logic here?
The Microsoft DVD\USB download utility name is actually  a misnomer. I don't know why Microsoft called it that. It is actually a usb installer and DVD installer creation utility. It does not require you to purchase anything.  Use the license that you already have when using the USB installer during a Windows 7 installation. There is no need to buy another. Licenses are always diistinctly seperate from the installation disk(s) or ISOs.  It is the same thing as a DVD installation disk except much faster.
You don't necessarily need to use an ISO image as suggested in the following video. You can also use your Windows 7 installation DVD as a source for the Windows 7 DVD\USB download tool.
Any other suggestions, any-one?
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