Not sure how difficult or easy this is. My Compaq Presario 1230 will no longer boot. All I see is adapter power led. I press and hold the power on button (which is located above the keyboard) and nothin turns on. Is there a way to open up this laptop to check out components or remove hard drive (this is without sending it in for repair)?

Hi John, Honestly, it wont do you any good opening it up. Just poking around won't fix this type of problem. tests and measurments need to be made at this point. If you'd like to open it up anyway, you have to remove the screws on the bottom front of the system, there is also one more screw behind the battery door (you'll need to remove the battery to get to this screw. Then the Palm rest and mouse pointer will lift off. From there it's pretty easy. Seems to me there is no power going to the board once you press the power button, this is a power issue. I simply don't have the time or the patience to go any further. I do this all day long. But at least you're on the right track. Joe

already checked to boot from a floppy or a cd (F8) before?

if it's anything like my laptop (compaq armada), it'll take a really long time (i've done it twice...last time was two days ago). the hard drive was easy...just remove the one screw that locks the panel in place...then you can remove the hard drive. If you want to open the laptop, you need a large table, and paper and pencil to make labels. There are so many screws everywhere...it's hard to keep track of them. Remove the keyboard first, then unplug everything you can see. go to the back and remove the screws that hold the top half of the laptop to the bottom half. also remove the bay components (battery and floppy) and remove the screws there. The top should slide up. from here, you should be able to see where the power button is. remember, this is with a compaq armada laptop...so it might be different.