hp pavillion dv6 notebook--hard disk repair

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Does anybody have any idea how to repair/restore the hard drive of an hp dv6 notebook PC (running Windows 7)?

The story of the problem goes like this:

1. Computer suddenly freezes up. Task manager won't open--nothing works. Ctrl+alt+del does nothing. So I turn the machine off using the power button.

2. I turn the computer back on and get an error message on the "blue screen of death":

"WindowsLogon: LogonUI.exe-BadImage
C:\Windows\system32/OLEACC.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support."

3. I turn the computer off again (again using the power button, because nothing else works), so I can try using the recovery disks. This does nothing....although at this point the computer stopped showing the above error message and froze at the screen that says "Starting Windows."

4. Tried hard reset (unplug USB keyboard/mouse setup, unplug power cord, take out battery, drain power, plug power cord back in, turn machine back on). Things just got worse: the computer now starts up with an error message on a black screen saying that the boot files are missing.

5. My dad ordered HP recovery disks online--these do nothing.....it was like the computer didn't even read them.

6. At some point "safe mode" disappeared from the startup menu for no apparent reason.

7. Fiddled with BIOS settings (i.e. changed boot order to boot from CD before checking hard drives....copied recovery materials to USB and changed boot order to boot from USB first) and this does nothing.

8. Ran BIOS scans--only quick scans because it won't give you the option of running a comprehensive scan anymore. Quick scan results: Memory is fine; Hard disk 1 error 303.

Does anybody know if there's anything else I can do??

Hmm hp laptops usually come with a Recovery partition, this works exactly like the Recovery disks (in fact users can create their own recovery disks through the Recovery disk creator tool - the tool will write the recovery files on blank disks).

How are you using the recovery disks? Are you: inserting disk 1 before on booting, press F11 key on start-up (press it repeatably before the "starting windows" screen appears), there it should take you the Recovery manager tool, from there you can select to restore from the disk (Warning: This will delete all personal files and restore the Windows to its initial state.)


If you have files you need to extract, you can try the Ubuntu Live CD (you can download it for free, google it), Ubuntu is a Linux OS and the Live CD will allow you to load this OS without installing it on the drive, through Ubuntu you can access the files on your drive and extract them to an external flash memory or external hdd.


If Linux is totally alien to you, there might be another way, does your laptop have an eSATA port? Do you have a SATA desktop hard disk? and most importantly, hmm...do you have Windows 7 disk (or Vista)? If yes to all, try to plug it (through an eSata cable) to your laptop and install the windows on the new drive, that would prompt multi-booting option on start-up, choose your new windows (which is install on the external SATA drive) and load it, your new Window's partition would be called C: , try to find your files/documents on the other partitions and move them to an external drive/flash memory....

Have you tried checking the disk integrity?

Windows XP - Go to Starta -> Run -> type in - CHKDSK C: /F
and select Y to start on next boot - restart when ready

In Windows Vista and above, in the search bar, type the same thing, press Y and restart when ready.

On restart, let it finish

Yep, that's pretty much what I'm doing with the recovery files--I don't press F11 repeatedly, though....just once or twice until it shows "F11.... System Recovery...." at the bottom left-hand corner of the otherwise black screen. Tried with the recovery disks I made and the recovery disks from HP--it doesn't do anything except show me the same error message about files being missing from the Windows directory, or alternatively it shows a screen saying "Windows is loading files" (regardless of whether or not there's a data disk in the DVD drive) and then either freezes on the next screen ("Starting Windows") or takes me to a completely black screen with a mouse cursor on it.

Thanks for the info about file recovery--everything important is backed up on data disks, though, so it's okay if all the personal files are erased.



I ran checkdisk a few days before the computer stopped working (after I ran a defrag the computer seemed slow, and I wanted to make sure things were ok....supposedly they were). I can't do that anymore because it doesn't even load Windows.