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Shovelhead

Shovelhead

New Member
I have a friend's laptop here...of course, no XP or recovery CD.
I'm in the black screen that gives you the options to boot
into "safe mode" etc.
Windows will not boot and keeps recycling back to that screen
no matter what the option chosen. Driver issue?
Is there a boot download that's available where I can burn a disk
or is it specifically proprietary to the original XP install?

:thankyou:
 
iSign

iSign

New Member
If it's a brand name laptop, that came w/ bundled OS etc pre-installed... and the M$ cert. of Authenticity... there may be restore discs available for DL, or even the rights to purchase (or beg for) the OS disc to be mailed to you.

My Dell Server running Windows Server 2003 started acting up, and I couldn't find my OS disc, so I called Dell. I was out of the 3 year extended warranty I had purchased, so they tried to say I had to re-up that, but I pushed them to accept that I never got the disc when I paid $3K for the system, and they finally caved and sent me Windows Server 2003 discs.
 
T

tyans1

New Member
Is it possible to get to a dos prompt? You may be able to delete temp files from there... it could be that it just a bad temp file. Not sure though.....
 
Techman

Techman

New Member
you can use any xp disk of a like flavor. Do a repair install. Do not do the recovery install,, thats bad. Go past that and to the second repair install. Nothing will change except for the broken parts. No need for a key. Also there could be a tag on that box with a key on it.

Or you can find a boot cd util on the web to boot the machine. Then you can use a key finder util to get your key. This would be about $50 bux in the shop..
 
ncpdfsb

ncpdfsb

New Member
their may be a recovery partition on the hard disk. dell, hp and most gateways have recovery partitions..
 
jiarby

jiarby

New Member
use Barts PE to create a bootable CD image. Boot into XP on the CD, then use the remote registry editing utilities you added to the Barts disk to fix the bot issue on the DISK-0 partition.
 
Craig Sjoquist

Craig Sjoquist

New Member
if all else fells ...... buy ... Acronis .. Wipe Drive ... less then $50 ... have your XP / Vista CD ... install wipe drive before reboot ... it will 110% clean like brand new .. reinstall your OS

this will clean of up to 20 computers unlimted times
 
Shovelhead

Shovelhead

New Member
Update

Alrighty then.....
I was finally able to access the bios to boot from a disk
to do a repair. BUT, the CDROM will not open (no power).
I did an HDD test and it's not reading and I get a read fail.
Is there a chance that this could have been dropped?
One more question...to further test the HD and possibly save their info,
how do I hook their HD up to my laptop?
Maybe easy, but I've only had experience doing that with desktop HDs.


:thankyou:
 
Shovelhead

Shovelhead

New Member
Update

Upon further review I noticed a quick flash of a blue screen (too quick to read,
tried pause/break to freeze) after the Windows boot screen and then it cycles through a boot-loop.
Still no CD power and it won't eject with paper clip.

I researched this and it could be three things....
-Damaged HD sectors
-Mixed NTFS and FAT32 Partition System files
-RAM problem

It is a Compaq Evo n610c and nothing was fiddled with. It just "stopped working".

Any suggestions folks? I appreciate you all.
 
jiarby

jiarby

New Member
The CD is in a laptop... then remove the whole drive. Fiddle with getting it to open then. Attach an external USB drive, make sure you check the boot order in BIOS.
 
mbarden

mbarden

New Member
Hey Shovel,
Evry CD can be opened with a larger paper clip, Unwind the paper clip and find the small hole on the front of the CD door. Insert paperclip and you should hear a click to let you know that your are hitting it right. Used to be network tech, called that the officail CD Removal Tool.
MB
 
Sign_Boy

Sign_Boy

New Member
I haven't had the chance to talk to the guy yet.
I'll try to get in touch with him after an install.
 
Shovelhead

Shovelhead

New Member
Went through a boot-loop once again and complete power failure.
DEAD.
With the previous symptoms could it just be a dead battery or a dead mobo??
:help
 
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