lenovo thinkpad r 500 failes to boot from CD or HDD........

[fabiniyoung]

hi everyone,
1 week ego i tried to make a clean install of windows 7 on my laptop, and this was the situation:
i had already both linux and windows 7 installed on it.
in windows i had C and a G drive besides in addition to the other partition for lenovo......

so the thing is i wanted to install the new win 7 on the C drive.
this is where i think i messed up; i tried to completely erase the C drive insteda of just installing the new OS on top of it as i did in other similar situations.
from their everything hanged and i had to push the power off button in order to turn the laptop off.

since then ladies and gentlemen i struggling to get it toeven show the selection menu where i used to select linux or wiindows.
it cannot boot from cd from hdd etc...
i have been inside BIOS SETUP and tried even to run hdd diagnostic from their but it will not pass 0% ...
in few words I m stack!

i would realy appriciate any help ....
plz
thanks in advance.

[ZaZ]

i would really appreciate any help ....

What's your goal? Maybe as a place to start perhaps you could boot to a Live CD and see if you can access the hard drive.

[fabiniyoung]

well obviously i would like to get laptop to boot.
the problem is that i cannot even boot from a CD i tried to use the PC doctor cd but it wouldn t launch it even if i hit f12 and set it to boot first from the cd drive.

but there i can see both the hardisk and cd drive in the boot menu.

if i were to try with a live CD where can i get it from? i do not have it.

[ZaZ]

The Ubuntu installer CD is a Live CD as are others. Can you get to the BIOS?

[fabiniyoung]

yeah i can get to the bios and i ve already tried to use an ubuntu live CD and even the one for windows 7 but it just hanged with the cursor blinking (just before the system loads windows or in my case : brings the OS MENU since i normally have both ubuntu and windows 7 installed).

concerning bios: i have already tried to rearange the boot sequence it just will not boot anything. i tried to run hard drive diagnostic but it hanged on 0%. moreover, i can see both the CD and hard drive (in the bios setup).

[ZaZ]

It's odd that the Live CD would hang. If it's working normally, it shouldn't even access the hard drive. Maybe you want to try DBAN to erase the drive or try a different drive.

[fabiniyoung]

hi again,
i have removed the hard drive and tried to run the live CD, and it worked. so now i m pretty sure that the HDD is the problem here.
i m thinking about buying a new one but was wondering if there are some ways i could extract my files from it...

[Harryc]

Here's what I would do. Get a USB SATA adapter cable or USB external enclosure and put the HD in it. Then I'd boot up a Live Linux CD and get my data off of the HD. Then I'd boot up Activekilldisk and write all zeros to the HD. Then I'd try to reinstall W7 with the drive back in it's internal cage.
http://www.killdisk.com/

[fabiniyoung]

great idea!! thanks a lot!

[sportfreak]

i think i ha a similar issue within the first few days of getting my R500 .. nevertheless, i had a external DVD drive that i got bundled with my office asus netbook .. used it up to connect to the laptop and run the live CD .. worked like a charm ..