can aborting debian installation damage Bios or HDD? (seams like it happend to me )
 

Hi
i have a toshiba m45-s351 laptop. recently i tryed to instal debian but i aborted installation after my Lan card was not detected i tryeid mmarvell Lan drivers on pendrive but installation did not recognize them). I used abort option from installation menu.
I also forgot to take out pendrive with linux Marvell Lan drivers from USB before rebooting the system
Anyways right now my latpop says there is no hdd and i tries to boot from Lan. I tried reinstalling O/S but windows debian and cd bootable Paragon partition manager say there is no harddrive installed in the system. Is this coincidence or the installation or pendirve with drivers damaged bios or harddrive??

I damn sure this is just a coincidence I've aborted manually restarted many OS installations this has never happened to me before.

how about drivers from pendrive i did not pay attention but maybe while rebooting it tried to load them and it screewd sth in boot the reason I'm concerned with lan drivers is that it tryies to star off win lan card and followinfg message appears

PXE-E61: media test failure, chceck cable
exiting pxe

i also used Hirens boot-cd and most HDD applications cannot detect HDD however
AIDA system info says on summary page that BIOS hard disk capacity is 0 but EIDE hard disk capacity is 95396MB (and it detects harddrive type etc. but it does not list in on list of system drives)

The install has probably partitioned the disk but you have not installed the os. Since there is no os and no boot loader there is nothing available. Your bios should detect the drive and parameters. If the bios is detecting the drive with size etc correctly then you need to partition and format the drive with something like win'98 boot disk or use Knoppix and use cfdisk from a consol.

I'm affraid it's more complex than that because I'm using Hirens boot-cd (it has plenty of tools for partitioning formating etc. which can run from virtual memory) but all HDD tools I used so far say that there is no HDD instaled

That looks like a DOS toolset - try Knoppix (a Linux liveCD), and open a console (equivalent to Windows "cmd"), and post output of(that's a lower case ell)

knopix starts only in very simple shell mode

That boot cd seems to have most of the manufacturer's hard drive test utilities. Have you tested the drive with the relevant utility. What is your bios telling you? Have you tried using fdisk and if so what did that list? Have you physically checked that the drive is correctly seated in the housing? Sounds silly but it can happen. I have repaired many pc's and I have seen many simple things cause problems. Most drives don't just fail without giving some signs of problems before they fail. Problem is most users don't recognise the signs and only call for help after the fact.

my bios is windows only accesible. I don't want to open the laptop not to japardize the earranty but HDD led blinks and drive sounds like it tries to read thought its a repeated sound (smth like header trying to start and not what HDD typicaly sounds like) Toshiba drive ustility onlu says FAIL without additional info but theustuilities generaly do not detect this drive

The bios is an os independent and the term means - Basic (B) Input (I) Output (O) System (S) see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS and is accessible via a specific key ( eg Del on many desktops) or a combination of keys. You would need to check your manual or do a Google search for the key sequence that Toshiba uses. If the Toshiba drive utility says the drive has failed then I suggest making a warranty claim on the retailer that supplied the unit. This sounds like either the ide controller or hard disk controller is failing or has failed. The sounds you are hearing is the controller seeking the relevant start sector but because the parameter is out it cannot find it. This is a physical defect on the hardware and has not been caused by software.

I really could not find any key sequence to go into BIOS and the manual refers to HWsetup in Windows (this is quite a f.. up laptop in terms of drivers)
are you sure that leaving linux drivers and trying to use the Lan drivers while debian installation could not cause the problem - cause I have internationall warranty from toshiba USA and use this laptop in Poland and they act sort of like they dome a favor they won't to reapair it therefore I'd rather be sure it's not my fault

Here you go http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.c...FID=0000000401

To access the BIOS usually F2 or Delete while booting brings up the BIOS config screen. Sometimes ESC or F1. It may be happening
so fast that you don't see the message. As soon as you turn the machine on press F2 and delete. Or find out which key it is. If you wait too long you wont get it.

ESC + F1 worked:) thanks guys
anyways here are the screeshots from my bios

http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...2/DSCN2521.jpg
http://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p...2/DSCN2516.jpg


it looks like BIOS can not see HDD

Ahhh - a toshi laptop. I've got one of them - will never buy another, although it has been a good unit. Mine is a good deal older than yours I suspect.
Just went into the BIOS on mine, and it shows both the HD (at IRQ14) and the CD drive (at IRQ15). Both are on the same IDE interface for me - and you I would guess.
Sounds like a disk failure.

I'm surprised Knoppix won't work - does it complain about the video card (and X not starting) ???.