Hey Guys I have a laptop here (a friend's) that wont get past post. It only gets past if i remove both the dvd drive and hdd. I have tried other ram sticks but it gets stuck right before the names of the detected ide stuff would show up. The hard drive does spin up as well as the dvd drive. It is a Gateway ML1309. POST looks like this Phoenix trusted core (tm) NB copyright stuff all rights reserved bios version 83.10 CPU=Intel (R) Celeron (R) M CPU 520 @ 1.6ghx 632k system ram passed 478 extended ram passed 1024 kb l2 cache system bios shadowed video bios shadowed usually now it will show the hdd and dvd drive stuff but it just sits there even if i press f2 to get into bios. if i remove the hdd and dvd drive it shows Phoenix trusted core (tm) NB copyright stuff all rights reserved bios version 83.10 CPU=Intel (R) Celeron (R) M CPU 520 @ 1.6ghx 632k system ram passed 478 extended ram passed 1024 kb l2 cache system bios shadowed video bios shadowed Kernel Library version: 03.01.00.07 strong ROM version :03.10 Build : P ERROR 0280: Previous boot incomplete - default configuration used press F1 to resume F2 to setup Im getting annoyed here guys so please help me out... Thanks
Sounds like the HDD is buggered. If it is, then it often prevents the PC from progressing past POST, as it gets stuck seeking the drive, and that's why it progresses past the HDD seek when you take the drive out. Easy way to test it out, replace the existing HDD with one that you know works. I've come across the same problem often.
