Hi folks, I was fixing a laptop with windows issues for a friend. Its a Fujitsu Siemens esprimo mobile v5535 running vista. They brought it to a repair shop a while back to have the hard drive replaced and its was running fine until recently when windows would randomly boot or not boot. sometimes it would boot, other times it hangs when loading windows or keeps cycling back to the bios screen. they brought it back to repair shop who said the hardware was ok but windows needed to be reinstalled. shop was looking for mad money so they asked me to do it. So I tried the following: 1) I did a full test with a diagnostics disc and all passed(motherboard,CPU,GPU,RAM,HDD etc). 2) I reformatted and downgraded to XP but problem still exists, this time randomly blue-screening during windows load up. On one of the occasions when it did boot up I applied all windows patches, I flashed the bios to the latest version and installed and ran the fujitsu diagnostics utility from within windows which again passed for everything. 3) I then decided to try a brand new hard drive (160gb WD scorpio blue). first off I had trouble even formatting the drive. setup would recognise the drive, allow me to create a partition but would error out when formatting, saying hard drive was damaged or not installed correctly. after a few attempts I sucessfully formatted the drive and the windows install got to about 80% but then blue screened with 'unmountable boot volume' Has anyone come across this before or know a fix for it? Its defo not a hard drive or OS issue, I flashed the bios so that just really leaves motherboard, but I tested it twice and it passed both times. This is the 2nd time in a month I have come across this problem. Last time the BIOS was erroring with SMART errors, which usually suggests a hard drive failure but I tried with 2 known good hard drives with the same errors. Apologies for the long post, its an unusual problem so I wanted to put in all the details. Any help is greatly appreciated.
tried good RAM, still the same. blue screens at windows splash screen, goes back to bios screen, I get 'windows didn't start properly' message. Safe mode, last know good config etc all blue screen out too.
yeah I have one, I'll try that tomorrow and post back, but I really doubt it's a hard drive issue but its worth a try. Thanks for the help.
i don't think it is a hard drive issue not when you are using a new hd but might be a hd controller problem on motherboard. laptop is about 3yrs old isn't it?
if windows installs on to the external hd alright then is a hd controller problem which is part of motherboard. also check the external power adapter for laptop that it is outputing the correct voltage, usually 19v but check on side of adapter as is printed there.
Thanks, I'll try that tomorrow. I never considered the power supply, I'll check that too. So if it is a hd controller issue is it repairable or am I looking at replacing the motherboard?
the controller is part of motherboard so looking at replacing motherboard. could also be a cold solder joint in the controller area.
if it was a cold solder joint would it be visible under close inspection or would you need to test (i know every case is different, but in your experience)
Thanks for all your help ddp. I checked the power supply, its a 20v and the dvm read 20.6v so seems ok. I used a usb to sata cable to try install windows on the hd externally. setup saw the drive but couldn't install windows, it gave the following error: "your computers startup program cannot gain access to the disk containing the partition etc etc on x86 systems this may indicate a problem with the CMOS drive type settings. see your disk controller documentation"
