Did my hard drive fail or is it something else?

Posted by Julian on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Julian
Published on 2012-04-01T20:22:18Z Indexed on 2012/04/01 23:33 UTC
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hardware-failure

Last night while I was watched a movie on my laptop the external monitor just went blank and the built-in display froze. Weird I thought, so I restarted it only to be greeted with this heart-breaking message. "No Operating System Found". After a few panicked restarts I accepted the fact that my hard drive might be done :(.

Being the resourceful technie that I am, I whipped out Ubuntu Live on my old Flash Drive and was up and running before day break. I cannot access the hard drive through Ubuntu (which I expected) but I also cannot access my DVD drive either! This got me thinking that it might not be the hard drive and some other component that they hdd and the dvd uses. Hopefully this is the case.

Which component is the most likely culprit? What tools can I use from Ubuntu Live on my USB flash drive to find out?

I'm in a bad place without my hdd, thanks in advance for any assistance provided!

P.S. My laptop makes a weird noise when I try to access or eject my DVD within the slot. Also my HDD makes a weird noise sometimes. Not sure how to describe it.

System Specs:

Dell 1558

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