Will laptop boot without hard drive?

[Spyder1000]

I've got a Compaq 2100 lap top that I bought almost 3 years ago. Last summer the drive decided to take a crap. After searching online I found it to be a pretty common problem and ended up replacing the PC with another. I've since decided I'd like to fix up the old thing.

I no longer have the hard drive but plugged in the power and the lights came on but nothing was displayed. I connected an external display to the unit and still nothing.

Does this lap top require a hard drive in order to get a video feed? I would have assumed that I would have at least been able to view BIOS information without a drive plugged in. Is there any way I can test to see if the display still functions before I spend some money for a lap top drive?

 

[Robutt]

You should see the BIOS is the real issue of whether or not you should get a new hard drive. If you cannot get the BIOS screen up (try tapping F5 as you start it up, not sure on your computer which F key it is) I would think getting a hard drive might end up being investing in a spare part. I wonder if you should try flashing the BIOS again. What do you mean when you say the hard drive crapped out, because it might not be the hard drive? What sort of symptoms are we talking about? Hard drives don't crap out as often as other hardware is what I am thinking right now, but you would have to get a second opinion on that.

What good is a laptop without a hard drive though? Are you trying to use it like a monitor, or something? Unfortunately, I have never heard of a video card that works without an OS.

 

[PRPhx]

I would think that if you left the old laptop on long enough you would get 1) a series of beeps and 2) an error message saying something about either no hard drive found or a hard drive controller timed out.

Does this laptop have a working cd-rom? Can you boot an OS from it? Any kind of cd-rom based linux, for example, should get you up and running.

 

[Spyder1000]

It's a Compaq 2100 Intel system. If you do a google you'll see that hard drive failure is extremely common in this PC.

Back in August 2005 the drive came to a grinding halt. Eventually the PC would no longer recognize it. I tried an aftermarket 80 gig to replace the factory 20gig but found my hard drive controller was not compatible with it. After some research I came to find only a handful of drives were compatible with the controller. I decided it was easier at the time to buy another PC and leave the lap top on the shelf.

The PC currently does not have a hard drive in the bay. If I turn it on the lights flash indicating it is powering up but the display remains unlit. If I attach an external monitor to the PC as it starts I do not get an image either.

The symptoms are:
No BIOS screen
No beeps

I would have assumed that I would have at least been able to access the BIOS screen and get a message indicating no hard drive was found.

 

[cdogg]

Your assumption is correct. As in any other PC, the BIOS/CMOS screen should show when you first power on. Sometimes this screen is "masked" by a vendor logo showing no details at all about the POST that runs at startup.

Either way though, you should be getting something on the laptop LCD at startup. Since you are not, the problem has nothing to do with the hard drive missing. The BIOS shouldn't even be looking for it until after the POST test completes.

1) You mentioned that the lights flash indicating that it's powering up. Does the power light stay lit on the laptop?

2) Is this laptop in some kind of docking station or have any external peripherals attached?


I would first make sure nothing AT ALL is attached to the laptop. Take out the battery and unplug the AC power. Hold the power button down for 30 sec (this performs an internal drain which forces a hard reset). Only plug the AC power back in and leave the battery out. Try powering it on again.

Good luck!


~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
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