I do this for a living, but I'm too bleary-eyed to follow up tonight. Shoot me a PM and let me know tomorrow.
Posted on 07/03/2009 7:59:53 PM PDT by max americana
Need some techie help pls . fellow Freepers. I have an XP Media HP laptop 2006 1.6 GB 2006. The laptop keeps attempting to boot up, the power is on but it wont just go to the XP /os start up,,,(the past 20 minutes now)
the solution pls especially how to access the laptop drive because it looks like I will have to reboot this laptop completely with the recovery disks BUT I dont want to unless neccessary. And there's some info that I need to get to especially the hard drive.
Expert and intermediate suggestions and solutions pls..
.
No dice on the safe mode/f8 process. Thanks for the reply.
Is it seeing your boot drive? What does the BIOS say?
I do this for a living, but I'm too bleary-eyed to follow up tonight. Shoot me a PM and let me know tomorrow.
Rebooting with your recovery disk isn’t all bad news. Typically you don’t lose your data (unless you reformat), but you do need to re-install your applications — which is a jolly jumping nuisance but not the end of the world.
(Best Buy will honor the warranty, even if you did not buy it there.)
Do you have a disk in the CD drive or an SD card in a slot.
You don’t give enough info to diagnose. What is the error message?
Make sure you don’t have any disk in the floppy drive.
They still have floppy drives in laptops? *raises eyebrow*
Try last known good configuration option and see if that works.
Still black screen guys, I cant even see the windows xp screen...what gives???
ROFL
You are correct, it SHOULD be the motherboard...that’s why I hate HP. I was just too lazy to make copies.
No, no disk.
If you see the disk drive light blinking on powerup, then it is probably booting fine but your screen is dead. If that’s the case, you should have a video connection on the back and you can connect a regular monitor to it if you have one.
Black screen...sfae mode/f8 wont show.
It keeps TRYING to boot up but just like Obama’s promises...nothing.
can you connect a usb drive to SEE the HP laptop from another laptop?
splash screen is what? The HP invent screen or the Xp screen?
nothing. As black as Obama’s heart. No cursor either, and at this moment, I welcome a BSOD.
My family had an HP once.
It was a piece of s***. And the fact that it ran Windows Me really didn't help.
Worst laptop we ever owned.
Multiple system board failures, hard disk failures, you name it. The damn thing was in the shop so often, it wasn't funny.
Needless to say, my sis and I both have ThinkPads -- an R series for me, and a T series for my sis -- these days, and they have been perfectly wonderful, aside from the DVD-RW on mine sounding like a jet taking off (which reminds me why I never use the drive), and my sis' laptop blue-screening whenever she does the three-finger salute and clicks "Change Password." [Too lazy/busy to fix the problems, so I just leave them be.]
In summary, my personal advice to fellow FReepers is either buy a ThinkPad (stay away from the SL series, though) or a Mac. Oh, and stay away from Dell, unless you want the data on your hard disk to go to hell.
Were you running McAfee antivirus software? If so, there’s a thread posted on that, very recently here on FR, some sort of malicious code in it that causes an “autoimmune” attack, wiping out core files. Some networks in England and Italy are experiencing 50% BSOD.
If you have a USB drive that has an OS loaded on it, which is a tricky thing to put together, and the BIOS is configured to boot from USB it would boot if there isn’t a problem with the Mobo (that’s motherboard for those of you in geek rio linda). But, if the Mobo is fried, it won’t boot no matter what you do.
Dude, McAfee is a piece of s***, especially the consumer version. Symantec’s not much better. That’s why I use Nod32. :-D
Crikey — I’m tired too. The strikeout in my previous message should be stet. and after the word “hitting” and before the word “shortly” (where the strikeouts begin) should be the word “DEL”
No, I hate McAfee and witched to Avira after Mcafee failed to spot a vicious trojan that shot down my laptop...but Spybot caught it which is amazing...
Rab..Im currently using a KOREAN laptop from Compaq w/c uses Windows ME. This is my emergency laptop.
I have Norton on my work mac, and nothing on my personal PowerBook.
Haven’t had any problems. It’s been years since Norton picked up anything in a scan, even.
> nothing. As black as Obama’s heart. No cursor either, and at this moment, I welcome a BSOD.
I’m guessing it’s the motherboard then. If you feel adventurous you may want to check your cables and re-seat any boards, but not a good idea if your machine is under warranty.
It does not sound like there is anything wrong with the drive itself, so chances are good that your data is there just fine.
Is your machine under warranty?
I tried to buy an HP laptop, once. I bought three of them in less than a week. They all had something wrong with them. I brought them back and got a new one, three times.
After demanding my money back and no more tries at finding a unit that actually worked...they sent me home with a higher priced Toshiba, at an HP price....
And I’m posting this reply on that same Toshiba...six years later.....
Now worries DHTD, Ill decide tonight if I have to pay Best Buy and their nerd guys to fix it. Thanks for the replies though.
The warranty just ended. I didnt want to pay HP anymnore because the laptop is a lemon.
That’s unfortunate. I’d offer you the extra ThinkPad on my shelf here, but you’d have to pay to get the screen fixed.
Perhaps because you're using a Mac. [I'm jealous. :-)]
If it’s the system board, you might as well just take a gun to the laptop.
I appreciate the offer but thanks anyway.
I should also add by way of context: HPs have had issues with their motherboards in the past. In a previous life I sold a few hundred to a single firm and had 20% of them returned on warranty. Naturally my client wasn’t too pleased, and neither was I.
On the upside, HP is good with their warranties, and they will look after you properly. Once your machine is working right it will work for a very long time. I’m writing to you on an HP that has been abused in every way possible. It is missing keys I’ve hammered the keyboard so bad, and there is a wear-spot beside the touch-pad, where all the silver paint is worn off. The texture is worn off every key remaining, and the keys are polished to a shine. If it were a horse I would have to shoot it. And I’d get done by the RSPCA for horse abuse. They are good machines, generally.
If you do have to run the HP recovery program, you might want to keep in mind that (it’s my recollection) the HP recovery program reformats the hard drive. In that case, getting your data back will be a real problem.
BEFORE reformatting your laptop drive, you might want to consider getting a laptop to desktop hard drive adapter (just google that phrase; the adapters are about $10.00), removing the drive from the laptop, and attaching the laptop drive to your desktop computer as a secondary drive. (unless you made your desktop computer yourself, your desktop probably has the ability to recognize multiple drives). Then boot from the main drive on your desktop.
Since the laptop drive isn’t recognizing the boot sector, you might not even have to change the pin connections on the laptop drive; if the computer recognizes the laptop drive as primary, but can’t boot from it, the BIOS will probably just move to the next item on your boot list, which would be whatever drive you normally boot from. If, however, you have to change the pin connections, it’s easy: there’s probably a diagram on the laptop drive, near a group of small recessed pins. The diagram will have a representation of how you need to connect the pins to designate the laptop drive as a secondary drive. Wrap some wire around the specified pair of pins, and you’re set.
Once you get your laptop drive connected to your desktop computer, you can boot up, and possibly read the data from the laptop drive. Transferring your data out of the laptop drive would be done the standard way (drag and drop if you are running Windows).
> Now worries DHTD, Ill decide tonight if I have to pay Best Buy and their nerd guys to fix it. Thanks for the replies though.
No worries, anytime. Hope they can fix it for you OK. If you feel adventurous, try opening up the machine and look for cables that have gotten pinched, see if you can free them up. Look also for connectors that, for some reason, have become unseated. Working carefully, of course: it could be a solution that is as easy as that.
Laptops are built to be portable, and when you move them, the cables and guts inside them move, too. That’s how things shake loose over time.
Good luck Mate. And Happy Independence Day!
*DieHard*
Your laptop fan might be clogged. Try and see if it rotates on startup.
It was what I learned to use a computer on, being in the graphics industry. Stuck with them through the rough years of the 90’s due to a large investment in software, and was so relieved when Jobs came back and put Apple back on the right track.
It’s always been loud. I will try to open the bottom and clean it up IF I have to do the recovery disk thingy..
About the fan, what should I remember before claning it?
Unplug the power cord, remove the battery. Wait about 5-10 minutes, re-install battery, plug in the power cord and turn it on.
I had a problem similar to yours a couple of years ago on a Dell laptop.
Turned out to be a read problem with the hard drive and it had to be replaced.
The best thing I ever did was invest in an external backup drive and Acronis software. It makes an image copy of your hardrive so in my case after I replaced the drive, booted to the Acronis boot disk and copied my back up to the new drive.
Had everything back the way it was before the failure in about an hour and ten minutes, programs and everything.
Best stuff on the market and not very expensive, about $80.00
Good luck
I use the laptop only but thanks for the info on that drive adaptor. Never heard of it before.
Thanks. I have 3 external HD’s but just too lazy to back up. Now I learned my lesson.
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