No video on lappie due to bad hard drive?

Undervoltage because the drive is trying to work and is drawing too much power, or overvoltage frying something else due to a short, because the HDD electronics are failing. (I'm not saying this is the problem, I'm just attempting to clarify Col's possible explanation.)

"Too much plaster dust flying around here"

zOMG, get all you electronics the hell outta there. Put it in giant Ziplocks or something. That stuff is finer than baby powder and cosmic dust. I gets everywhere, probably including inside a sealed HDD. You do not want!

sounds like a laptop system board issue, anyway you correct the bios screen shold display

are you able to enter the bios wht the hard drive out? if so , its not a hardware issue with the video components

Too much plaster dust flying around here. Won't open the computer room as I've no front panel on my desktop tower.

My question isn't about why I don't have video. It's about wtf a bad hard drive has to do with not being able to see BIOS preload info.

You may need to physically remove the HDD to see if it cures the Video Problem.

Also with some NB's can be set in BIOS to display to an external Monitor so you should also connect one just to make sure that it's not something like that.

If there is a Short Circuit in the HDD itself it can pull all the important voltages low and stop the system working. So depending on what is wrong with the HDD it could just be that and if it's something like the Motor no longer spinning it can cause other things to burn out if the unit is left on as the Power Draw is way too great.

Col

I can't see anywhere why you think the HDD is the cause. Looking in the wrong place perhaps?

I really don't like the way the order of posts changed after I selected the answers, and I really don't like that two days later the posts I thought I made that didn't show up on posting have magically appeared.

That may need to be removed but the Internal Drive.

Though I'll admit that things are really confusing now with things appearing and then disappearing. I suppose it all depends on when you hit the site as to what you get to read.

Depending on what is wrong with the Internal HDD if it's drawing too much power through failed Motor or some sort of Short Circuit, that will pull the Voltage Rails in the NB low and there isn't enough voltage available to allow the rest of the thing to work properly if at all.

Or it could be something as simple as low voltage not allowing the Backlight on the Screen to illuminate so what displays on the screen remains invisible to you.

Col

So the shop replaced the hard drive, and things went well for a couple weeks. The day after I brought it home, I had the no video issue once.

Now a few weeks later, no freaking video again/still. I can't take it back to the shop as I"m an easy 1000 miles from there. It's going back as soon as I get home, though.

What are the odds that there's a static buildup of some kind interfering with things?
What are the odds there's an as yet unfound power issue?
I checked the backlight (flashlight to screen - nothing shows so I can assume it's not the backlight?).
I've nagged them about the cable from the video card to the screen, but I freaking forgot to double-check that they checked that. I'm so dim on occasion...

Anything else I should look for?

And please don't anyone ask about the BIOS. I've got NO video, not even POST screen. How the hell would I know whether I can get into the BIOS or not? Which I could before the video crapped out...

Yes, Vista loads. I can hear the little musical sound that precedes the login screen.
Thanks. *sigh*

OK now to be sensible if this is happening so often what have they told you was wrong? Personally I would be looking at a High Impedance Joint somewhere and no I don't mean a very large Marijuana Smoke. There is an electrical Fault here with something putting a lot of Resistance into the system and it really should be fixed by someone who knows what they are doing.

Sort of rules out the crowd that you've been taking it to so, what do the Makers say here?

Col