<p>Ah! This is deeper than earlier thoughts. System will not get past bios beacause of hardware change or failure.<br>
You'll need to do some bios digging and try disabling the wireless, boot from usb or even update the bios firmware. A live cd would be usefull to check on hardware status.</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Jan 24, 2012 8:07 PM, "Cornelis van Dijk" <<a href="mailto:cor.angela0@gmail.com">cor.angela0@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
Thank you all for the quick reply.<br>
<br>
I should have mentioned that the drive does not want to boot anymore,<br>
it just hangs with an idiot message about a wireless (RealTek) gadget<br>
which needs its cables checked. As far as I know there is no such<br>
thing on this laptop.<br>
<br>
The BIOS still sees the drive but not the USB external Seagate. The<br>
install program of suse 11.2 *does* see the external drive and I guess<br>
I could install the OS on that, but would it boot?<br>
Is there a way to force the BIOS to recognize the external drive? I<br>
can find no mention of the USB drive anywhere in the BIOS (it mentions<br>
a floppy, but this laptop does not even have a floppy!) Upgrading the<br>
BIOS is probably also out of the question because of the boot problem.<br>
It is a Phoenix BIOS from 1999.<br>
<br>
It is kind of hard to see how programs like Spinrite would help if I<br>
am not able to boot. Sorry for the incomplete information. Good to<br>
know anyway.<br>
<br>
Also good to know that these thing are user serviceable. It is a<br>
Fujitsu drive. I guess I have to open the thing up. (A year ago I<br>
succesfully mucked around inside my Sony Viao, disconnected a faulty<br>
ventilator fan; thing does not seem to mind.)<br>
<br>
Thanks again and any further help will be appreciated,<br>
<br>
Cor van Dijk<br>
<br>
<br>
On 1/24/12, Pat Regan <<a href="mailto:thehead@patshead.com">thehead@patshead.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> On Tue, 24 Jan 2012 13:22:15 -0500<br>
> JD <<a href="mailto:jdp@algoloma.com">jdp@algoloma.com</a>> wrote:<br>
><br>
>> I looked for 5 yr warranty 7200 rpm HDDs recently - they either do<br>
>> not exist anymore or are too expensive (2x price) of other HDDs. 3<br>
>> yr seems to be the new warranty standard for non-cheap HDDs. I<br>
>> definitely have at least 6 seagates spinning here now - all with 5 yr<br>
>> warranties that have not expired. I do not expect to replace them<br>
>> with Seagates when the time comes. I have a long memory.<br>
><br>
> Every manufacturer has been offering three year warranties since at<br>
> least the late nineties. Seagate's extra 2 years aren't worth very<br>
> much. After three years it isn't worth the shipping cost to replace a<br>
> small, dead hard drive with a small, refurbished one.<br>
><br>
> Pat<br>
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