Laptop not starting up

[IronyTaken]

My step father's laptop is having problems starting up.

When you turn it on the fans will come on and you can hear it trying to start up but the screen is blank and then after a few seconds it shuts back off.

I believe it's the hard drive, but I am not sure.

The laptop is a little over 5 years old and is a Gateway 400VTX.

[SnOwBunZz]

Hook the laptop up to another screen. I don't need to explain what's wrong when there will be no image on the screen, right?

[IronyTaken]

Well here is the thing it turns on for a couple of seconds then shuts off before the screen can even turn on.

It makes me think it's the hard drive.

[SnOwBunZz]

Did you plug it on another screen?

[VaanityX]

I don't see what plugging it into another screen would do.

If it's starting for like 5 seconds that's hardly enough time for the screen to load up. If it shuts off before then I would say yeah it's probably the hard drive.

I had the same problem with a desktop awhile ago. Turns out my parents bought me a really old HD off of craigs list and it just died or something.

[SnOwBunZz]

I don't see what plugging it into another screen would do.

This would rule out that the GPU is broke. Most laptops don't exactly have decent cooling.

[IronyTaken]

My laptop doesn't beep on the POST, so it's possible it won't when my GPU fries either.

I really doubt it's the HDD though. Your screen wouldn't turn off after you boot but it'd show there isn't a hdd found message on the screen.

Well my screen was never on to begin with when starting it up. The laptop was being used and then just suddenly shut off. I will try your idea but I


Edit: When I tried plugging in the monitor it turned on and showed that windows was booting up but then after the loading screen for windows boot the monitor shut off and nothing else happened.