Laptop hard drive suddenly not detected in BIOS?!? HELP!!!

Hi,
I installed Windowblinds 5 on my laptop yesterday and installed a new skin, everything was working fine. This morning I turned it on and the hard drive isn't being detected. In the Bios it seems the drive isn't being detected: 'HHD Model Name: None' and 'HHD Serial Number: (looks like very faint japanese writing or something)'. The laptop is only 1 month old and under warenty but i'd rather see if there is some cure to this problem before sending it away; installing software dosn't normally kill a hard drive does it? Windowblinds changes windows system files so maybe there has been an error. I read somewhere that if the wrong partiton is active or the primary partition isn't active then the hard drive isn't detected, how can I check this? Would a bootdisk work to get me into windows if no hard drive is detected?
Cheers

 

what windows version??

is it a secret?? i could have you running in 3 minutes if i knew the version

 

Sorry forgot to say! Its Windows XP Home

 

I might suggest that if you want to change the windows theme, it's best to hack this registry key, then install themes. And not using programs like windowblinds. You just have to find the themes and instructions with google. This way there isn't any unneeded programs in memory.

But if your disk is being detected in the BIOS with weird characters, it sounds to me like the partition(s) is currupted at a low level and the only I can think of is reformatting. You might use a tool like maxtors powermax and try some of their tests, or use Ultimate Boot CD and use some of those tools (or even knoppix) to confirm that the partition(s) has bit the dust. It may be that just the boot sector is corrupt.

 

I don't know if the disk IS being detected. The weird characters are under the disk serial in bios, but it says none under hard drive name. Also when i try the windows xp cd for a repair install it says no hard drive detected.

 

If its not detecting your HDD in POST. Then youre probably not going to be able to access it from a boot disk. Usually when its not set active, it won't boot, but POST will detect it. My suggestion would be use scanreg at the command prompt to load a previous registry backup to clear your registry of the Windows Blinds install. If you don't have a backed up registry. Maybe try Windows rollback? Ive never used rollback so I don't know how that works. I usally backup my registry after any major install. Hope this helps.

 

I didn't back up my registry after installing windowblinds. DOH! But there probably is a registry backup knocking around from when I installed Spybot. Is scanreg on a bootdisk or on the windows cd? I'll also look into Windows rollback. I guess if none of these options find my hard drive then it's kaput?
Cheers for the advice!

 

Now that i think about it. I dont know how you will access scanreg if you can't see your drive.. Mess with BIOS and keep trying different settings. If all else fails, you might need a new HDD if its not going to be detected at all.