Laptop down

Malte279 · **on:** October 16, 2008, 09:16:48 AM

Hi!
Disaster strikes or so it seems. I may be disabled from being around a lot for a while by the shortcomings of my personal laptop. I'm writing this on a university computer.
Yesterday when I tried to boot my computer I ended up in a never ending waiting line. The login window would not appear. After just switching everything off and rebooting the laptop I got an error message informing me that there might be some system error preventing the system from starting properly. There was a microsoft (vista) function to try to repair the problem automatically. I tried it, it did work and everything seemed to be fine. The laptop was running again and so it did this morning. However, when I booted it later today there was the same problem with the only difference that the automatic repair program doesn't seem to be able to fix the problem anymore. I'm unable to log in and make any use of the computer whatsoever.
I wonder if you Austin (or anyone of you) know of any such cases and if there is anything (short of formating the harddrive and building up everything from scratch with the loss of some precious data) that you know that I could do.
Being stripped of personal internet access while preparing for impending exams (for which the internet is not the most important but a highly useful tool) is one of the ugliest things that can happen to you short of physical injury or total loss of all posessions

Mumbling · **Reply #1 on:** October 16, 2008, 11:26:39 AM

Aww that's sad. I can't help you out either, sorry. Hope someone else knows.

Vaan360 · **Reply #2 on:** October 16, 2008, 12:07:38 PM

The almost exact same things happened with me some months ago(7/8 months ago),each time I booted the pc the login window appeared, but after a very short time(10s) a error would appear and the pc would auto-restart, over and over agian, always.
I managed to save my important data in a pen, during each 10s it stayed turned on, I managed to save a documente at the time.

In this case I don't know, but it happened to me too out of nothing, strange thing.
I hope Austin can help you

Kor · **Reply #3 on:** October 16, 2008, 12:08:52 PM

Maybe the pc experts here can help, not sure of the information they need, but giving as much info of what the error messages say is likely among what they need, along with the number of beeps a pc may make, if it makes more then the usual ones it always does when it boots.

I hope things get up and running for you quickly.

Malte279 · **Reply #4 on:** October 16, 2008, 03:33:14 PM

Again I'm typing this message on a computer that is not my own. Maybe there was some kind of success. For some reason it was all of a sudden possible again to boot the laptop properly so first of all I saved all the crucial data on an extern drive. Although it seemed to be working fine I am not exactly reassured for so it did yesterday after the automatic fixing and today in the morning before it was unaccessible once again. There was no notification of any success whatsoever from the automatic repair program which is why it took me kind of by surprise (not an unpleasant one of course) when it was working all of a sudden. I hope that it will remain stable but I'm rather uncertain. I don't even have any clue what might have triggered this in the first place :unsure:

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The almost exact same things happened with me some months ago(7/8 months ago),each time I booted the pc the login window appeared, but after a very short time(10s) a error would appear and the pc would auto-restart, over and over agian, always.

Not the same on my end. The login window did not show up at all over here.

lbt/cty_lover · **Reply #5 on:** October 16, 2008, 04:48:58 PM

Well, I probably could give some advice. Even though my computer is a Mac, it still holds to be very similar in principle.

First, did you save the discs that came with the computer/OS? They are crucial for fixing the computer. If the answer is yes, than please let me know. If the answer is no, well then you might be out of luck. Better let the other Austin help you.

Petrie. · **Reply #6 on:** October 16, 2008, 05:20:40 PM

Yes, the discs can help but we don't know what's wrong. Plus if it was a critical Windows component that was corrupted, the computer would always be in lockdown--it wouldn't be coming and going like this. What we have seems to be an intermittent problem that comes and goes. Windows won't fix itself if a driver goes bad. So I'm going to guess and say its not Windows, but could be an installed program that runs something every now and then if a certain file is accessed. Have you installed anything lately?

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #7 on:** October 16, 2008, 05:59:38 PM

Bad News Malte. I'm pretty sure I can't blame vista for this one (as badly as I'd like to). The chances are the hard drive is bad. If it will boot sometimes and not other times, it's a hardware problem and not just something as simple as "oh just pop in the disk and wait an hour". Normally I would just ask you to check your HD indicator light, but with Vista, that light never seems to stop blinking 'cuz it's such a resource hog. Find where the laptop hard drive is located and hold the laptop close to your ear near the spot where it's at. Do you hear any weird sounds coming from the drive?

Laptop drives I KNOW are bad:

-Seagate 320gb SATA (typically installed by Dell and Gateway)
-Western Digital 250 and 200gb ATA hard drives (Installed by pretty much every manufacturer)

If you have one of these drives, please take the laptop back to the company and have them replace the it. Make sure to tell them you want a different kind of hard drive (even if you have to go lower in capacity). They're pretty much all messed up. You can try a format but it probably won't work. I'll tell ya what. I've never shared this with anyone before but I'll give you a copy of my super secret repair tools. There's a hard drive program that can fix ANY hard drive so long as it recognizes. I wouldn't recommend repairing the hard drive if your computer is still under warranty, but at least it'll tell us if there is any physical damage to the drive itself. PM me and I'll try to get back to you ASAP with how to do this.

Petrie. · **Reply #8 on:** October 17, 2008, 06:14:16 AM

That was my other thought, Austin, but Malte didn't mention any beeps or loud sounds from the computer (usually bad discs make a lot of noise).

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #9 on:** October 17, 2008, 09:52:41 AM

Not always with newer machines Petrie. I've had a lot of newer laptops (2006 and newer) that had bad drives. You could only tell by a very quiet scratching noise when you held the laptop up to your ear. This isn't ALWAYS the case though. Sometimes a laptop HD can be broken and it'll sound completely normal.

Malte279 · **Reply #10 on:** October 17, 2008, 10:31:14 AM

Hi! Thank you for your help. Right now the laptop has one of its "wake" moments (trouble in the morning, but that time easily fixed with the automatic repair program). The laptop is a HP Pavilion dv6000 (bought last year in August so the two years warranty still applies).
I did not so far hear any unusual noises from it, but I will listen closely next time it has the problems. Unfortunately I have not a clue what kind of hard-drive it has (most technical computer stuff being Greek to me

) and the label at the bottom of the laptop doesn't seem to be very informative about that one either (a number of product keys there, but nothing that I could identify as the name of the hard-drive type). With the impending exam on October 29th I really can't make do without any laptop at all so I reckon I will hand it in after that exam. I just hope it will help for my experiences with repair services and the company's commitment to fulfill their warranties has been rather negative so far

Again thank you very much Austin and I will let you know if I find out about the hard-drive respectively if I hear (or not) any of the scratching noises you mentioned. If indeed there is any hardware defect enough to create any scratching noises I take it there is a risk of worse damage and possible loss of data (the most important stuff is evacuated) if it continues?

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #11 on:** October 18, 2008, 03:33:25 AM

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If indeed there is any hardware defect enough to create any scratching noises I take it there is a risk of worse damage and possible loss of data (the most important stuff is evacuated) if it continues?

Yeah, if you hear a scratching noise, that's the hard disk reader scratching the disks surface and corrupting the data. Even if you don't hear the scratching noise it still might be doing it. I would get EVERYTHING of value off that computer that matters to you and run it off a flash drive or SD card. Then to hell with the hard drive. It's already messed up and needs to be replaced, so who cares if it gets worse if there's nothing of importance on it? What matters is the data. There's no fixing a hard drive like that. Ya just have to replace it so go ahead and just use the laptop until it totally dies if you've already got what you want off of it. HP will just totally replace the drive anyway, so you can't hurt anything if you've got all your data backed up.

Kor · **Reply #12 on:** October 18, 2008, 05:23:24 AM

Not sure if you laptop can run off of an sd or flash drive. Maybe some folks here can tell you if it can if you don't know & also tell you how to run an os off of an sd or flash drive. With most usb flash drives they can hold a descent amount of stuff for daily use. At least till you get a new hard drive or get the present one replaced. Then you can always keep the bootable sd card or flash drive around as a spare, if you prefer using a hard drive.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #13 on:** October 18, 2008, 05:52:04 AM

I wasn't talking about running the entire Vista OS off of a flash drive Kor. I don't think Malte has that expertise. Heck, I had a hard time doing it and I'd never do it again unless completely necessary. It's so slow!

I meant for Malte to keep his word documents and such on the flash drive, not the entire OS.

Kor · **Reply #14 on:** October 18, 2008, 06:09:15 AM

He could use another then vista likely, as a back up os. I know there is a version of linux designed to run off a flash drive. an ok think as a backup. Not sure if xp can.

& no need to get snooty & such.

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #15 on:** October 18, 2008, 06:22:31 AM

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He could use another then vista likely, as a back up os. I know there is a version of linux designed to run off a flash drive. an ok think as a backup. Not sure if xp can.

Well, I don't think he'll be able to run "Damn Small Linux" from his flash drive seeing as you have to change the boot order in the BIOS and such and portable xp is MUCH harder to run than "Damn Small Linux" so I really don't think a portable OS is an option in his case.

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no need to get snooty & such.

Sorry. Wasn't trying to be. Did I really sound snooty? :huh:

aabicus (LettuceBacon&Tomato) · **Reply #16 on:** October 19, 2008, 03:11:39 AM

Don't think so. At least, it didn't sound that way to me.

'Laptop Down.' Sounds like the modernized version of Watership Down. "Get away, you damn White Virus!"

Malte279 · **Reply #17 on:** October 19, 2008, 04:22:08 PM

^ My eyes were neither bright nor burning like fire last time I checked

The laptop didn't have any error whatsoever since Friday, but of course that needn't mean the problem is gone for good (I was visiting my cousins this weekend which is why I hardly posted).

landbeforetimelover · **Reply #18 on:** October 19, 2008, 05:20:24 PM

Perhaps the HD can be fixed. It sounds like a hardware problem for sure, but I have programs that can fix just about anything. Do you have a webcam Malte? If so, I can walk you through the process. I'm afraid just telling you how to do this isn't going to work since unexpected things happen constantly.

Malte279 · **Reply #19 on:** October 19, 2008, 05:56:16 PM

I do have a webcam, alas I hope it won't be of much use for this purpose. It is integrated into the laptop so it cannot be turned to show what is shown on the screen

But thank you very much for the offer, I appreciate your being so helpful