How to Diagnose a Pre-Operating System Load or Hardware Issue

Posted by soandos on Super User See other posts from Super User or by soandos
Published on 2012-06-14T21:34:12Z Indexed on 2012/06/17 3:20 UTC
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Filed under:

boot

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hardware-failure

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diagnose

How can I find out if my problem is hardware based?
If it is, how can I figure out what component is to blame
How can I fix other pre-operating system issues?

As an aside, what are all of these components responsible for, and if they break, what can go wrong?

(This question comes up frequently, and the suggested solutions are usually the same. This community wiki is an attempt to serve as the definitive, most comprehensive answer possible. Feel free to add your contributions via edits.)

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