W520 HDD bad boot sector

Hi All,
My W520 motherboard died on me which has now prompted to purchase a new laptop due to high repair cost.
I've taken out my 320 GB HDD from my Lenovo W520 and attached it to an external USB case in attempts to salvage my files.
When I attempt to open this harddrive on Windows, it tells me that the disk must be formatted to be accessible etc.
So I got the TestDisk utility http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk which recognizes my hard drive and shows me that there are three partitions.
However, attempting to boot into any of these partitions with TestDisk is met with failure as the boot sectors are "Bad" and no identical.
Attempting to rebuild the boot sector also does nothing.
Has anyone faced a similar issue before? What can I do to boot into my HDD and retrieve my old files?
Will overwriting the MBR with TestDisk's MBR cause any issues?
Please help

aiaf wrote:
Hi All,
My W520 motherboard died on me which has now prompted to purchase a new laptop due to high repair cost.
I've taken out my 320 GB HDD from my Lenovo W520 and attached it to an external USB case in attempts to salvage my files.
When I attempt to open this harddrive on Windows, it tells me that the disk must be formatted to be accessible etc.
So I got the TestDisk utility http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk which recognizes my hard drive and shows me that there are three partitions.
However, attempting to boot into any of these partitions with TestDisk is met with failure as the boot sectors are "Bad" and no identical.
Attempting to rebuild the boot sector also does nothing.
Has anyone faced a similar issue before? What can I do to boot into my HDD and retrieve my old files?
Will overwriting the MBR with TestDisk's MBR cause any issues?
Please help
Did you copy off your pics, docs, music, etc. first?

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Welcome, realvater!
Thank you for starting this thread. I understand that moment of excitement when someone hands you a broken laptop; I also know the visceral moment when you realize, "...this was going to be easy, right?" Keep the suggestions rolling, everyone.
Meanwhile, Have you performed a HDD diagnostics? Have you run motherboard/system diagnostics? Unfortunately, no amount of formatting/reformatting/FIXMBR can repair bad hardware, so it would be a good idea to check out all hardware first. You mentioned a new HDD was ordered and installed? Be sure to re-seat the drive carefully, assuming the port is not faulty. Also, if that capacitor was from the motherboard, and not from the old power supply, then the motherboard could be faulty and render all your hard work for naught. Best of luck, we are here for you!
Matthew|Community Advocate | Best Buy® Corporate
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Hello, I hope someone can help me.
I have a dell inspiron 1525. I recently replaced on of my memory 512mb modules with a 2gb memory module. At the same time I change the 120gb harddrive and upgraded it to a 320gb harddrive. After doing this when I start the computer I receive the message:
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Whenever we get this error "No boot sector on internal hard drive", it means that our hard drive has no partition/ boot sector to boot/ start operating system (Windows).
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Thank you very much.
I could make a bootable clone of the Ma OS side using Carbon Copy Cloner. This point is OK.
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Question regarding boot sector virus.

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W520 HDD bad boot sector

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