sony vaio PCG-71314L
at turning on, hangs at "starting windows" for ever
F10 says "disc read error"
F8 says "no operating system found"
booting/repairing/reinstalling from CD hangs at "starting windows" for ever

with UBCD511, under HDD Diagnosis, the Fujitsu and IBM/Hitachi tools both couldn't detect the drive. the Samsong tool auto detected the HDD, but wouldn't do anything, because mine is a Toshiba.

with wiping and partitions tools, only my usb flash drive showed up. i was using a bootable usb flash stick with UBCD511.

probably my HDD is physically dead? are there more definite ways to confirm either way?

Some tools won't recognize your HDD unless it matches a certain brand / model, so that behavior not necessarily means your HDD is dead.

Other tools will recognize "any" HDD, but may not perform any action unless it matches a certain brand / model.

Other tools should accept any HDD, because they are more general tools not related to a certain manufacturer.

There are many possible reasons for your HDD not booting, including bad cable connections, heat (during the life time of the HDD / laptop / notebook / ... ), software issues and more.

Unless you find a tool that would be able to evaluate the HDD (whether in that same computer or connected into a different system), you won't really know what's going on. UBCD contains many different tools related to HDDs, separated into different categories.

Cleaning the system (better air -> less heat), disconnecting and reconnecting the components, connecting the HDD to a different system, are some of the methods to evaluate it, among others.

thank you very much ady for your good input!

my laptop has a fixed socket and the HDD plugs directly into it. i've tried taking the HDD out and putting it back in, which didn't help. i don't have the right connectors/wire harnesses to plug in this questionable HDD for testing in other systems.

what softwares, other than UBCD, will allow me to evaluate my HDD in its original and now not bootable system? (they need to be either for Toshiba HDD, or generic, for mine is a Toshiba.)

In UBCD you have many tools in different categories (not just diagnosis) with some capabilities of identifying your HDD, performing tests and more.

Since we don't know exactly which HDD you have, I am unable to suggest you any specific tool. And even if I knew...

Moreover, if you can't even boot your system with UBCD now (or at least that's what I'm getting from your last post), then it's even more difficult for anyone to help you without having direct access to that hardware.

So my suggestion would be to ask some friend with more knowledge, or you would need some technician or support guy if the hardware and/or data has some value for you. You could also try searching for the specific laptop model in the manufacturer's web site.

You should know that if you have important data to be recovered, the more you "play" with your HDD, the higher the risk.