i7 laptop broke

[Very Elegant]

Alright, here's my problem.
My expensive as shit laptop just doesn't start up anymore.
Well, it does, it goes to ASUS logo screen (I can acces the bios)
Then it goes black and in the upper left corner there's a little blinking stripe.

A friend of mine thinks the problem lays within the graphic card which is a sandbridge, nvidia540m

Does anyone know the solution to this problem? Would be very greatful.

 

[takethepants]

Could be a billion different things. I think it's unlikely the graphics chip. Most likely a corrupted part of your hard drive (either hardware or a corrupted MBR). You can try booting from a Linux live CD or if they gave you a Windows disc. If that works, then I would just try to copy everything off the drive and get a new one.

 

[PsychoRealm]

Every single laptop has its own alerting system. For instance, HP alerts technician through blinking NUM and CAPS LOCK indicator. (Like, 1 blink - CPU is fucked up, 2 blinks - GPU, and so on).

Try to find out what alerting system for your laptop is and go from there. The reason of the issue you are having might be as simple as fucked up OS or crashed MFT on your HDD.

Also, THIS might be helpful. Just as I said it looks like boot sector got fucked up (so your PC has no idea where to start with OS load) and you'll have to restore/reinstall your OS.

 

[ViperStriker]

Roman'll love this one: It's obviously got a Virus.

No, but seriously, Psycho's got the right idea, I think you fucked up your OS at some point in time. It's corrupt and a restore/re-install might work.

 

[Very Elegant]

Every single laptop has its own alerting system. For instance, HP alerts technician through blinking NUM and CAPS LOCK indicator. (Like, 1 blink - CPU is fucked up, 2 blinks - GPU, and so on).

Try to find out what alerting system for your laptop is and go from there. The reason of the issue you are having might be as simple as fucked up OS or crashed MFT on your HDD.

Also, THIS might be helpful. Just as I said it looks like boot sector got fucked up (so your PC has no idea where to start with OS load) and you'll have to restore/reinstall your OS.

Will look into this, thanks.


Making a recovery disk as we speak, really hope it will work.
If the disk does not work, can I conclude it's either a virus or hardware problem?

 

[takethepants]

Will look into this, thanks.


Making a recovery disk as we speak, really hope it will work.
If the disk does not work, can I conclude it's either a virus or hardware problem?

yes. Also, this would be definitely a hardware issue if a clean install didn't work. MBR viruses are very rare.

 

[Very Elegant]

yes. Also, this would be definitely a hardware issue if a clean install didn't work. MBR viruses are very rare.

Alright, I've performed a recovery and I simply couldn't recover it because there's no OS/no HDD found.
Say if a friend would switch the HDD with another one, what's the chance of it working again?

Or should I try installing an OS first?

 

[takethepants]

Alright, I've performed a recovery and I simply couldn't recover it because there's no OS/no HDD found.
Say if a friend would switch the HDD with another one, what's the chance of it working again?

Or should I try installing an OS first?

Well if it can't find the hard drive then it's either the controller on the hard drive or the mother board. Most of the time it's the hard drive and simply swapping the hard drive will fix your issue. If you put a new one in and it doesn't detect it, then your laptop is mostly toast and I hope you have a warranty.

 

[Very Elegant]

Well if it can't find the hard drive then it's either the controller on the hard drive or the mother board. Most of the time it's the hard drive and simply swapping the hard drive will fix your issue. If you put a new one in and it doesn't detect it, then your laptop is mostly toast and I hope you have a warranty.

If that is the case, I shall make a video of me destroying this piece of shit.
I hope switching the HDD will fix it.

 

[PsychoRealm]

If that is the case, I shall make a video of me destroying this piece of shit.
I hope switching the HDD will fix it.

Don't buy Western Digital. If you have some money - buy SSD drive. If you don't - go with Seagate. These dudes offer free data recovery during the warranty period (which is usually 5 years) + hard drive replacement for free. Plus, their Barracudas are extremely reliable.

Also, as takethepants mentioned, if it can't find the hard drive it's most likely a controller's failure on HD side. I personally would not attempt to install OS (or keep any critical data) on HD that let you down once already.

 

[KOS-MOS]

If you want your data off of the hard drive if it still works, buy an external enclosure for it. Then it acts like a USB hard drive hopefully long enough for you to get your data off