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..
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.
Whoops. I posted my response before I realized that you had specified that your screen was completely blank. That may not be a drive problem, but a screen problem.
I certainly don’t know the relative failure rate of motherboards vs. screen connections, but one of my compaq (curently owned by HP) laptops just had a screen failure that turned out to be a broken wire to the screen. The wire broke right at the hinge of the laptop, presumably due to fatigue from many opening / closing cycles. You may have the same problem; if you do, the way to fix it is to expose the wiring from the laptop to the screen, making sure to expose the wires at the hinge of the laptop, and look for a broken or burned out wire.
Take your time since you still believe that you have your files out there. You might try chkdsk from a floppy os. If worse comes to worse, you can always rebuild your op system assuming you have a complete win xp. It gives you the option of saving files it finds from the previous op system when you go into a repair mode or even rebuild. If you have another computer running in your home, use it to troubleshoot your problems as well. I have an AMD FX64 running Vista Ultimate 32 as well as a pentium running Windows XP Professional which I use occasionally to get myself out of difficult situations. Good luck.
Try #47 first.
As long as your disk isn’t encrypted, use a linux live cd and copy to usb thumb drives or burn a disk of all your files, then do a complete system restore.
At least you won’t loose anything.
You have an issue that is nearly impossible to diagnose properly without seeing it first hand. But If it’s the same type like my sister had it’s the mobo and it’s likely overheated one too many times.
Just a toothpick to test if it rotates smoothly, and if you have one of those air blowing bulbs that’s used to clean camera lenses, try and send a couple of puffs toward the fan directly and also along the exhaust ports, and see that it rotates freely. You could also use a vacuum cleaner’s blower, but don’t use it for too long- there are issues regarding static electricity coming off the hot air.
If it doesn’t rotate freely, you probably have a dust bunny clogging it, and that makes the motherboard prevent the laptop from booting, in order to protect the computer.
Most laptops display a Fan Error warning when this happens, but some don’t.
He needs to make sure he hits the LCD, Monitor Button.
Could be he just turned off his screen.
If the screen goes blank as soon as he goes through system check at startup, that is likely the problem.
Had something similar happen to my Dell desktop last month. Dead hard drive, 5 days past warranty. I did have symptoms beforehand, where it would sometimes boot and sometimes require me to restart several times.
I had backups but they missed about 3 months of emails. Now I have a NAS so I can backup all my computers.
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