im not sure what is wrong here i have a laptop that comes on but will not load anything, it just gets to the windows screen and doesnt do anything after that except a blue screen will pop up with writing on but disappears to quickly to read. not to sure what the first step should be im thinkin maybe the hard drive is gone but not sure how to tell, any help is appreciated
try booting into safe mode. lets just see if you can. Have you installed any new software or harware lately? Many times in order to remove a piece of spyware or for troubleshooting and diagnostic purposes, you'll have to start Windows in Safe Mode. While in Safe Mode, only specific programs and files needed to run the operating system are loaded. Some functions, such as connecting to the Internet, will not be active in Safe Mode and a standard video driver will be loaded causing a washed out look and a possible change in resolution. Windows XP If this does not work, we will try something else. If Windows XP is the only operating system installed on your computer, booting into Safe Mode with these instructions. If the computer is running, shut down Windows, and then turn off the power Wait 30 seconds, and then turn the computer on. Start tapping the F8 key. The Windows Advanced Options Menu appears. If you begin tapping the F8 key too soon, some computers display a "keyboard error" message. To resolve this, restart the computer and try again. Ensure that the Safe mode option is selected. Press Enter. The computer then begins to start in Safe mode.
ive tried to start it in safe mode and it does the same thing as before with the blue screen and everything. also tried to boot to last known good config and still nothing. do you believe that is the hard drive then?or is there still life?thanks again
no new software or hardware has been installed lately. it just started doing it one day. what do you mean beep codes or POST codes?
There is a few more things to try before a reformat. Do you have a copy of XP or Vista?. try booting to disc as it could just be a simple file missing. You may need to go into Bios to set your laptop to boot from disc (usally hit delete as it boots up) I have spent hours trying to fix pc's only to find by putting O/S disc in they boot ok to the hard drive after picking up the missing file. Also XP will have a recovery consol to try. Another thing have you maybe Knocked your laptop and disturbed the ram? try removing ram and reinserting.If you have 2 ram try one at a time You will have to look up the methord of getting to the Ram for your Laptop but is uasally quite simple. And you could also slave your hard drive to another Pc (using a cheap adapter) and scan for viruses or other issues if no luck at least you could save any data before reformatting. http://www.wikihow.com/Recover-Data-from-the-Hard-Drive-of-a-Dead-Laptop
The first thing to always do is a chkdsk c: /f on your boot drive. You can do this with a xp installation cd or a bartpe (which is better). A chkdsk will repair any file corruption on the drive which will cause bootup problems. To check if your hardware is good, you can use a Linux livecd. A livecd will run all your hardware(ram/vga/motherboard/cpu without installing on the hard drive. If the livecd doesn't work maybe you have a hardware problem. More than likely your hard drive is OK, if it was bad it wouldn't even bootup to the windows screen. At worst it might be corrupted, which is easily fixed.
cant be your hardrive, if it were your hardrive, bios would say you hardrive woulnd't load or fail or something similar to that.
well i dont have a xp installation cd. is there anywhere that i can get one on the internet? or can someone send me one? thanks alot for helpin me out
ov3rk1ll, edit your sig to conform to forum specs ASAP. yours is 14 lines of text plus images. 4. If you want to use both text and image in your signature the image should not be more than 500 pixels wide and 100 pixels tall, and you can use up to three lines of text. posts edited
well i tried to boot from a xp pro cd and got nothing more then ive had before but even if i cant boot up i can get the adapter and save my files to another computer befor installing new harddrive? or can i not do anything?
ide & sata are 2 different connectors so find out what your hd is or take the drive with you to get correct adapter. best buy or similar should have it or check local computer store.
