my lenovo 3000 N200 laptop not booting, unable to boot from CD, hard drive and memory test passed [ Edited ]

[rkpujari]

Hi, my Lenovo 3000 N200 laptop is not booting all of a sudden. lenovo care doesn't work, booting from recovery disc doesn't work even if I change the boot order. booting from USB works and I used it to test my hard drive using the Lenovo software from the following link http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/MIGr-70578.html. I tested the hard drive and memory both (advanced test) and they both passed. if I remove the hard drive and boot from CD then it works. but that isn't of any use since the hard drive should be there to repair it. my warranty is expired, but I do have recovery discs with me. this has happened to me before,but then I could boot from CD and erase all the content on my hard drive and reinstall the OS. but this time I could not boot from CD (while HDD is inside) and my hard drive test is successful. so not sure what to do? could that be problem with RAM, but that test is also successful? should I just erase all contents of my hard disk and try again? unfortunately Hitachi drive fitness test only has CD image and has no option to burn it to USB, so I tried a commerical software to burn its ISO image to the USB and then tried. how can I fix my laptop now? please help.

[Duck3]

How far in the boot cycle does it get with HD in?

Lenovo screen? Or not even that far?

If you cannot even get to Lenovo screen on boot, there

may be a hard drive problem, even though not detected

by test program. The HD may work fine again

if you have a way to "zero out" (completely erase)

the drive, attached externally for example.

HDFT won't work on usb drives, but other options are out there.

[rkpujari]

thanks for the reply, I just get the white lenovo screen, that's it and it doesn't go any far than that. I disabled quite boot, and then it stops at the "mouse initialized" symbol and then it hangs there. I managed to load Hitachi drive fitness test onto USB and again the hard drive test was successful. so I am not sure if it is actually a hard drive issue. I can try erasing the hard drive as a last resort, but thinking if it is actually any other issue.

[Duck3]

Yes, erase as a last resort.
So, as I said the drive is probably fine Physically,
but there is still a problem, hopefully a driver issue.

Can you start in Safe Mode? (Press/tap F8 at Lenovo screen?
If so, hang on for further ideas from myself and others.
I will check back later.

Edit: and how did you put HDFT on a usb? Enlighten us!

[rkpujari]

sorry, I have already started erasing the drive, because I wasted a lot of time trying to fix this without erasing it. none of the keys worked for me except F1 (thankfully), so I could enter BIOS and change the boot order. I used the software UltraISO (free to try) to burn the ISO image for HDFT on the USB. but when I try to boot from it, I get some options for which I don't know the answer, so I left without answering them, then it throws some errors and shows me the menu, then I did quick and full test both of which completed successfully (it doesn't clearly say passed though, just says operation completed successfully and gives some status code). finally I chose the "erase disk" for low level formatting, because I didn't want to waste any more time on this. hopefully I should be able to boot from the recovery CD after this and if I can't, then I have to pay someone for repairing it (I can probably buy a new one with the cost of repair). I checked the Lenovo site and it says there are no service offerings for this model. this laptop hasn't been reliable to me ever since I bought it. the battery is dead as well and I need to order a new one. right now I am using it without the battery.