Laptop does not start

[cpo312]

My Compaq Presario v4000 laptop recently started freezing and hanging up until I tilted it to a 45 degrees angle to the right then it would work normally as long as it remained tilted to the right. Also I noticed that the clock was off by 2 hours late. So I opened the back of the laptop to see if anything was loose or not well connected. I noticed that the hard disk drive was not well connected or it was loosely connected so I pushed it back into it's connector firmly.
When I turned the laptop on again, all I could hear was a whirring sound from the fan and a click sound from the hard disk drive for a second and it goes off and repeats the same sounds for another second. This goes on and off like that till I turn it off with the power button. The power led light and hard disk light come and off at the same time with the whirring and click sound on and of like that. The screen remains black in color nothing shows.
Please heeelp someone.

[Gonzo]

Any clicking sound from a laptop is either the fan or the hard drive making the click of death. If you hit F2 or Delete (or whatever key gets your system into CMOS setup) does it make the sound there? If so, you can easily remove the hard drive and CDRom and repeat to see if either is clicking.

[Yogesh]

Please note:
Thread moved from Motherboard Processor & RAM to Portable Devices.

[Bon-Z]

You start the laptop and it starts making repetitive clicking noise or grinding noise.

Most likely you hear this noise because of a faulty hard drive. You can remove the hard drive and start the laptop without it. If the noise is gone, the hard drive is your problem. Try to connect it properly again. If still doesn't work, replace it.

If the laptop makes clicking or grinding noises and you still have video on the screen, you can run a hard drive test utility. I usually use Hitachi¡'s drive fitness test. This test is reliable and easy to use.

[cpo312]

when I start the laptop, I get a whirrring sound and a click sound and the power led light and hard disk drive light come on for a second and all turns off after a second and the whole thing is repeated over and over again. There is no video on the screen as all I get is a whirr sound and a click and nothing else