I dropped my hp laptop and it has been on the startup repair screen for hours now--what can I do?

Question

I dropped my hp laptop (I have windows 7). There was a blue screen with the cursor. It took about an hour or two for the startup repair screen to appear. Then it says to wait at least an hour. I've been charging my laptop for around a day now and the same screen, with a bar with blue moving, is still there. It says it's fixing disc errors. What can I do to get to the windows screen with usernames and pictures/fix it? thanks.

Answer 1

You may have had a head strike. This means that there has been physical contact between the head and hard drive platter. If that's what's happened, it'll never recover. The HD is done. To recover from this you could investigate a data recovery service. They typically dismantle the HD, move the platter to a known good system, and force a read off every sector. It only runs about $1K in U.S. dollars.

Answer 2

Depending whether the computer was running or not when dropped, there might be some hope.

If it was running, then Everett is right, the HDD is probably done. If it was off, there is a chance a connection has been knocked loose and causing the computer to freeze. Here are some things you can try.

1. Try booting in Safe Mode (tap F8 at start up).
2. Try booting your laptop to a Windows CD Command Prompt or an Ubuntu Live CD. Once booted, see if the drive is recognized and accessible. If so, back up your data.
3. Remove the drive and try to access it from another computer using a USB adapter.
4. Lastly, take the laptop to a service tech who can dismantle it and check for internal damage and/or loose connections.