Laptop crashed, disk status unreadable

Hi All!

> nephew's laptop, Gateway ML6714, Vista, SATA harddrive
> he was playing Spore (shouldn't have been w/this laptop I believe) and screen went black (laptop shutdown I believe)
> couldn't reboot; tried using restore disks to install Vista from scratch but although it appeared to show a volume, it says it was unrecognized
> tried executing harddrive driver D20035-001-001.exe but it can't unzip to c:/cab as I believe c: isn't even there anyway
> tried pulling driver off of the restore disk but perhaps I didn't find the right one during the Vista install....is this my real problem?

so using diskpart (after having a CD with the harddrive driver in, D20035-001-001.exe)
> list disk only shows Disk 0
> Disk 0, status=unreadable, size=149GB,Free=149GB,Dyn is null, Gpt is null
> select disk 0
> list partition
There are no partitions on this disk to show.
> list volume
Volume 0, Ltr D, Type=DVD-ROM (only reading the cd disc)

> details
Disk Id: 00000000
Type: ATA
Bus: 0
Target: 0
LUN ID: 0
There are no volumes.

I can't create partitions/volumes. Repair doesn't work either. I also believe I can't format if it sees no partition or volume.

Is this a physical problem? They are still under 1 year warranty so is it best to just send back? Also, did video memory swapping playing Spore cause this corruption??

Thx for reviewing!

 

So by everyone's silence, should I assume there's nothing simple I should try and should just use the warranty??

 

Based on what you tried, sounds like a dead hard drive.