Two bad sticks in a row is a little strange, but bad hardware is not uncommon. Yet I have to ask...

Are you 'safely removing the drive' ?

I ask because if data is traveling to the drive while...

Does the data traveler work on another computer?

To use the System Configuration Utility method

* Close all open programs.
* Click Start, Run and type MSCONFIG in the box and click OK
* The System Configuration Utility appears, On...

Have you checked for malware and viruses? Also is the connection slow the entire time the PC is on?

Couldn't the drive be accessed with a live cd?

Not necessarily. I've had a PC that would boot with a beep but would not display anything. The memory turned out to be the problem.

Motherboards are also supposed to have a special beep for bad...

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1838907,00.asp

This isn't exactly what you are talking about, but it may help.

I was told by a professor one semester that there is a dedicated chip on motherboards to handle the keyboard and mouse in order to save on cpu resources, but the chip still uses RAM.

So I am...

I would check to see if your hard-drive is failing. First I would go into the BIOS to see if the mother board is recognizing the drive. If it is then I would try booting a live CD.

These two...

Perhaps the drive had come unplugged while inside your laptop?

Do you have a CD or any other media devices attached to your laptop when you try to boot?