What I Learned After An Assumed Hard Drive Crash - Part 2 of 5

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Time for Some Calm, Analytical Thinking

Notebook PC laptop The core problem was looking more and more like a hard drive failure. So I pondered, what are the options; what next few steps should I take? I decided to carry out some more re-tests as outlined in the last few paragraphs. Yet this time, I purposefully watched the hard drive activity light. During switch-on, there appeared to be some life or activity coming from the hard drive. Possibly a good sign, yet still too early to be sure.

Next, I had a spare PC so went online and checked out the PC manufacture's website for support information relating to the model of the damaged PC. Their indicators suggested checking the RAM modules.

Testing the Add-on RAM Module

Armed with the new information, I went back to the main PC, then:

Powered down the HP notebook.
Unplugged the PC from the mains supply.
Removed the rechargeable battery.
Carefully removed the 2Mb add-on RAM module, being especially careful not to touch the module pins to reduce the risk of static electricity from my body shorting out the memory module.
Placed the removed RAM module on a shelf away from the work area.

Hard Drive Crash?

With the memory module removed, I re-installed the battery, plugged into the mains electrical supply and switched on the PC. At this stage, the PC was running only on its own RAM memory that came built into the motherboard / system board. If the PC worked normally, then I knew that the RAM I had temporarily removed must be the culprit.

After carrying out the usual tests, there was no change: the PC boot up process wouldn't proceed past the HP Boot-up screen. This suggested that the removed RAM module I removed earlier was OK.