Laptop broken

[hypernova]

Our 10 year old daughter dropped the laptop off the sofa arm to the carpet because she was too lazy to place it on the floor while she ate.  Now it doesn't work.  Here's what I know:

I can't even get POST.  At all.  I keep getting "No bootable device -- Please restart system"  (So pressing F2 or DEL just repeats that message).
The HDD won't work in our other laptop. edit:  It boots to the logo screen, but hangs.  Can't get into boot menu or BIOS screen because it hangs there, too.
Our other laptop HDDs won't work in this one.  Neither the boot HDD or secondary.
When its own HDD is inserted, the laptop takes about 10 seconds to display the error message above.
When it's removed or when I place the other laptop HDDs in there, the message appears within 2 seconds.

I opened it up, and couldn't find anything broken or any cables loose.  I disconnected and reconnected them all multiple times trying to get it working.

Are both the laptop and HDD broken?  I can't fathom any other reason why my other HDDs won't work in it, nor will its HDD work in the other laptop.

[Slippyblade]

I was about to say it sounds like a head crash, but if it's not even recognizing any drive at all - don't know.

[jdbailey1206]

I would personally get a 2.5 usb external hard drive enclosure and see if you can get it to read.  If you cant chances are she prolly fried the hard drive.  If you can find a cheap replacement its worth a try to try to repmace the drive.  If nothing will read it might be a hard lesson learned on her part. 

My wife did this a while ago to her laptop.  She placed her laptop on the picnic table where our dog was prone to jump.  Before I could tell my wife that might not be a good idea she put the laptop down and the dog proceeded to knock over the laptop which fell to the ground and shatterd the screen. 

[CrazyKongFan]

I had one in my laptop where I think the head crashed, wouldn't boot or anything. I ended up buying a new HDD and reinstalled the OS. Eventually I was doing stuff with another PC and had made a live-linux CD, and wondered if I might be able to browse the filesystem on the bad HDD. So I put the bad HDD in the laptop, booted up the linux CD, then mounted the bad HDD and was able to read most of the files off of it. A few were corrupted, but I was able to pull almost everything I wanted to keep off of it. I did try the enclosure thing on it first using another PC and for some reason, I couldn't get it to work. Maybe I wasn't doing something right

[SavannahLion]

Make and model of laptop and HDD? What version of OS? Upgraded or factory install?

Another thing to try, have you tried a LiveCD yet?

[knave]

Make and model of laptop and HDD? What version of OS? Upgraded or factory install?

Another thing to try, have you tried a LiveCD yet?

Or boot from a USB drive?

[Thenasty]

I had a person with laptop and just keep re-setting. Don't even see the BOOT SCREEN.  Not even an f8 to select from the menu.

I can however goto BIOS setup. I set to default and tried it and still same problem.

Well I booted of the CD/DVD drive and re-installed windows (no problem).

Now it all works.

[hypernova]

Make and model of laptop and HDD? What version of OS? Upgraded or factory install?

Another thing to try, have you tried a LiveCD yet?

I meant to try, but for some reason, I ended up forgetting, probably because it didn't seem like it would work because I couldn't even get POST. (Felt like an idiot afterwards since I forgot about LiveCD or a USB boot).  It's a Toshiba S55-A5294 with Windows 8.1 (from

I took it to Microcenter, and they were supposed to have a diagnosis by Tuesday, but I'm still waiting.  And getting frustrated.

[ark_ader]

Geez, buy a new laptop.  You have insurance right?

Kids and laptops don't mix well, especially when they don't respect your expensive items.

Make her pay for a new one.  My parents would.

[hypernova]

They eventually got it working.  Got it to post finally.  HDD went bad, as well as the keyboard.  The original technician assigned left/quit/was fired for whatever reason.  Guess my laptop got lost in the transition.

Considering it was a fairly recent i7 laptop, I wasn't ready to call it quits.  Just fix a few things and it should be good for many years.

[hypernova]

Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiggghhhhh...Got a call this morning.  Everything's ready to go.  Picked it up an hour ago, and turned it on the parking lot.  Everything looks good.  Touched nothing else, closed it up and went home.  Got home, fired it up again, and the keyboard is absolutely freaking out, while the mouse buttons aren't working correctly either.  Did they not actually test the keys?  And I'm mad at myself for not testing the keys before I left.

Way to go Microcenter.  Way to live up to expectations.  How do these repair places stay in business?  Guess I'll take it back and tell them to fix it correctly this time.

[Donkey_Kong]

I could be wrong, was it you that recommended Sager laptops here a few years back? 

[hypernova]

You would be wrong, sir!

Got a call back later yesterday.  They found that somehow a screw had protruded and was poking the keyboard connector ribbon.  I guess the very minor vibrations from going home ended up getting the screw to tear into the ribbon completely.   So they had to replace the keyboard again.  This time at no cost.  Gave me one with backlighting, too.