i would have taken the
battery out from the
cmos and ensure the
regular power pack is
out too.

i think that 20 or so minutes
is the ideal time for the cmos
to loose it's energy. however,
i think the sony website has
specific information about this
method.

but this suggestion is only
a worthwhile try because i have
seen some predictaments resolved
with unusual methods.

while inside your computer
you might want to unseat
the harddrive and re-seat it
and see if this might help
the bios/cmos to recognize
the device attached to the
motherboard again.

if not, then see what sony
recommends.

it might be a good idea and
proceed to order / buy a
replacement. it will likely
make your laptop functional
however, the replacement will
also likely be blank of all software,
unless it is preloaded.

if the replacement works then
clearly the old hd was faulty.

if the old hd has vital data, documents,
pics, etc,... you should send it into
one of those data recovery companies
to extract the data for you.
--

db ·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·..><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>¸.
><)))º>·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·.. ><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>


..


"John" <John@falseaddress.com> wrote in message news:471191ea$1@clear.net.nz...
> This is a Sony PCG 9A4N. It's a Japanese key board model (My wife is
> Japanese).
> I took the cmos battery out but not for more than a few minutes and it didn't
> loose its date... It could have been 5 minutes or so???
> I have to wait until she comes home before I attack it further.
> When it attempts to find the operating system I hear "tap, tap tap tap tap"