UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums General Off Topic Hard disk failure - laptop sick :(

My laptop is sick

Cannot boot into XP - get's to the welcome screen, plays the music, goes to a light blue colour and just sits there

It doesn't seem to lock up, as the mouse still moves - but I get no further activity. Have left it for 30 minutes.

It will boot into safe mode just fine -so not sure if it cannot load the graphics into memory, or maybe there is corruption on the HDD.

I am currently copying data off from safe mode onto my network storage, so at least I have a chance of not loosing everything.

Just wondered if anyone had seen similar issues?

BTW - tried going into the control panel within safe mode and got the blue screen of death.

Deep joy....

Get Ultimate Boot CD (ubcd4win.com) and create it with a working PC. Then boot it on your laptop and do a scandisk. This help in most cases. If this not work do a backup. Boot the CD, establish network config and backup all to an other PC or use the build in burner programs to do a backup to CD/DVD.

then go and delete all temp files, swap and hiberfill. After this do a scan with a2free for spys.

Do do a virusscan with the cd you should enable AVG in the CD setup before you create the CD! Do a update of the antivirus from the install menu too. If this finish, crate the CD and after you boot it you can do a full scan of your laptop.

The other quick way: disasamble your laptop and get the HD. Put it as second drive to a working PC and do a scandisk.

But the better way is ubcd4win. There is a build in remote registry editor for harder stuff. You can edit the host registry and kill out autostart entrys. Hope this helps. Good Luck.

Thanks - will take a look at ubcd4win

I have heard of it, but never used it.

it works well.. Good recommendationo Zarzal

Thanks - made a CD, made the computer try and boot first of all from the CD - but the CD does not appear to be bootable - don't think I made a mistake burning it, so maybe there is something else wrong

To make matters worse the HDD will not even boot into save mode now - get a very brief blue screen and it reboots.

Deep joy

Boy are you having fun!!!

I hope this never happens to me!!!

Try using a retail cd like XP or something that you know for a fact is bootable.

Go into your BIOS and make sure it's set to boot from CD first.

I thought I would upgrade to Vista as I have a pukka Vista Business upgrade - that booted, entered the legitimate code, and then was told ' using that number you must upgrade from your current operating system - aaarrghh!!!

So at least the system is booting from the CD drive.

But not from the ubcd4win cd's.

Sadly I cannot find my XP cd - I have the sleeve with product key, but not the disk Goodness knows where that went.

I think my only option is to go out and buy another laptop and try and find a way to mount my current HDD on that system. Although my existing laptop is T7500 with 2GB of Ram, so I doubt I will get a system that is much better.

I have another copy of Vista that isn't an upgrade, but that is a 64bit version so no good.

All good fun....

Sounds more like a driver or something not loading. Have you installed something lately? Can you boot into safe mode and undo whatever is the problem?

I was able to boot into safe mode - but can't even do that now - as soon as safe mode loads, I get a very brief blue screen and it reboots

I think I need to find a device that allows you to connect a second 3 1/2 inch HDD to another laptop - never seen such a device, but I am sure it must exist.

oops - meant to mention, nothing new installed recently - I did however notice that I was getting crc errors when trying to backup some of the files, so I am assuming it is corruption on the HDD.

The UBCD4W is an excellent utility and should be able to help you out. If your Vista CD boots then you have to have done something wrong in creating your CD. If there is data on that drive that you want then you need to be careful and not run anything that is going to write to the drive which will reduce the ability to recover data.

Please try from another system to create a bootable UBCD4W disk.

http://www.ubcd4win.com

Now made 3 CD's - none of which boot - all give no errors or warnings whilst being built.

I think the laptop is toast

btw, it's a 2.5"hdd (as it's a laptop); also, you'd be looking for a usb external enclosure; see newegg.com

sorry 2.5" Will take a look to see if similar devices are available over here.

Ian, how do you create the ubcd4win without having the original XP CD? Do you only download the file, expand it and burn it? That doesn't work. You have to run the create process and this process ask fpr the XP CD. The system behind this is a BartPE Disk.

If the creation finish you get an image, wich can be burned to CD.

I am using an XP CD - copied into a folder on a HDD, then slipstreamed with sp2, then merged using ubcd4win.

What program are you using to do the burn?

Maybe try another program ?

'star burner' I think - assume that is the default on this other laptop - problem is all my software is on the other computer

Have not heard of that one before.

One of these should work fine though. Just download one and use it in DEMO mode for this purpose if needed.

Free CD/DVD Burning
CDBurnerXP

You can also use this COMMAND LINE version from Microsoft if you want. It actually works quite well. Have used it many times.
Dvdburn.exe: ISO DVD Burner Tool {part of the Windows Server 2003 Resource Kit Tools}



MagicISO

CD Burning is Free - DVD and other is not. $38 for full
Express Burn

Smart CD/DVD Burner

Nero Ultra Edition 8

Roxio (not sure they have a demo though)


If this is the STAR BURNER you're talking about they do not appear to be online anymore
Star Burner

So how's this going Ian? Any luck checking/fixing the Laptop drive yet?

nope - couldn't get anything to boot from the CD drive apart from the Vista CD - even tried another windows XP CD.

All very strange.

I have had to buy a new laptop, as I can't afford to take a gamble after the holidays.

Anyway, many thanks for all the suggestions and help It is appreciated.

Lol I'll take your old one ...