So, I dropped my laptop yesterday and now Windows 7 won't load. I can get the BIOS/Setup screen fine, but after that I get a black screen with a little flashing cursor up the top. I tried the Lenovo One-Key recovery system, but that hangs after trying to read the hard drive. I don't have a Win 7 disk.
I tried an old Win XP CD I had lying around. No dice, it got quite far, loading lots of drivers, but eventually BSoD'd saying there was a problem with the HDD.
It seems that dropping it has buggered the HDD, but someone told me that if I can run chkdsk or some other HDD utility, I might be able to salvage things. Is that true? And if so, what do I do? I have an old Win XP desktop, so I can download utilities and burn CDs - but what? I thought Easy BCD was the kind of thing I wanted, but after downloading it, that doesn't seem to be the case.
If I can't do anything, will borrowing a Win 7 disk off a friend help? The laptop (Lenovo G570) is only 3 months old, and I haven't emailed the seller yet, but I assume it's still in warranty. But replacing it is of course a last resort.
I figure I could take a bear.
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Hiren's is a pretty loaded option, as is the UBCD (I believe that's the acronym - ultimate bootdisk CD I think). They're chock full of goodies, though by virtue of their chockfulliness, are somewhat daunting to users who don't know most of the tools on them.
Edit: should add the additional tip besides chkdsk that should be ubiquitous by now (assuming you can get to a prompt/safe mode): sfc /scannow to take a pass over your existing winstallation.