Hard Drive Failure

Working on Sony Vaio PCV-RX550 for a friend.
Trying to boot gives a possible boot failure and F1 option to boot, F2 option to Setup.
F1 option goes to a "Insert System disk boot failure".
Trying a Sabayon live CD gives no other system/media except the CD itself.
I'm assuming the hard drive is completely fried.
I don't have the system disks but may them have later in the week.
Any other options?

 

Find out the manufacturer of the hard drive. Either remove it, or look in the BIOS for the model number, then Google the model number to find the manufacturer. If the model number starts with IC or HT, it's a Hitachi/IBM. If it's ST, it's Seagate. If it's WD or WDC, it's Western Digital. If it's MK, it's Toshiba. Then visit the manufacturer's web site, download their diagnostic tool (they're usually bootable) and run the extended tests. Toshiba doesn't have a diagnostic, so use the Hitachi/IBM Fitness Test; it works with all brands and is a great tool for testing drives.

 

Just an update.
It was an old Maxtor drive so used Seatools.
Failed every test. Used the extended 3 times with the same results.
File 13 for this drive.
Thanks dlb.

 

Could be as simple as wrong bios settings. Go to bios, see if the harddisk shows up. Also, check the boot order. Hard disk should be last.