# Hard Drive reported as empty after accidental power off during shutdown



## hazeldine123 (Feb 17, 2015)

Hi my advent monza t100laptop was turned off by my grandson shuting down and when I turned it back on I get aptio setup utility on screen and been told lost harddrive can I use my advent vsta harddrive and ry that in monza t100thanks


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

*Re: Recovery disk/drive*

What is the exact error message? 
If your are getting the Setup Utility, then you probably still have the HDD and it is not lost. The HDD may, however have failed. 
You can create an Ubuntu Live CD and boot off of that and it will allow you to browse your *C:* drive. This will also confirm that you do have a C: drive still and it is not lost. Then you can save any personal files to a USB HDD. 
Once you are safely backed up, you can Run the Setup Utility and restore the computer to Factory Defaults. If that fails the HDD may need to be replaced and Windows will need to be reinstalled.


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## hazeldine123 (Feb 17, 2015)

*Re: Recovery disk/drive*

Hi thanks for reply aptio setup utility when i go into bios it says hard drive empty and the one with it on screen these 2 will not highlight when i press enter. my grandson who is 5 just turned laptop off not shuting down properly been told hard drive damaged this is a ADVENT MONZA T100 on windows 8 i have a vista laptop will the hard drive worked if i tried that one in many thanks


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## Done_Fishin (Oct 10, 2006)

I would suggest trying to use Testdisk to try and repair the MBR of the drive. It can help to recover and repair the MBR of the drive assuming that the data in the MBR was corrupted and not deleted or destroyed

TestDisk - Partition Recovery and File Undelete

TestDisk Step By Step - CGSecurity

It would be advisable to have the Step By Step guide handy / open on another PC / Laptop to guide you through the process

when asked if the partitions were created under Vista press Y if they were created under Vista or Win7


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## spunk.funk (May 13, 2010)

It would help to know the exact error message. I have never seen a message that says "Hard Drive Empty" In Setup (Bios) it does not list the contents of the HDD. So, it would not say that it is Empty or full. Shutting down a computer would not delete information, however, if there was a power outage or something the MBR which is like the Table of Contents for your drive, may have become damaged.
Creating an  Ubuntu Live CD will allow you to browse the C: drive and show you the contents. Or you can Use TestDisk you can try and recover the MBR or at least your files. You will need another drive of the same size or larger to restore your files. 
Your computer should have a Recovery Option, that will allow you to restore your computer to Factory Defaults. Read Page 15 of your Manual: http://documents.knowhow.com/Computing/Monza_Notebook_Series_Users_Manual.pdf


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