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#1
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Can't Boot Laptop
I have a friend who has a Dell laptop that will not boot. When she boots it
with the power cord plugged in, it starts to boot and then shuts off. With the battery removed, it seems to work better, but still shuts off. Sometimes she can get it to boot a little into Windows, but then gives her an error message (see below), and then shuts down. Though it seems to me to be a hardware issue, someone told her to reinstall Windows (XP Home). So she put in the Windows disk, and it began the reinstall. It actually got much further than it had in the past when just trying to boot. So that made me think that maybe it was something related to Windows. She said she got to a part asking if she wanted to create a FAT partition or something to that effect (she doesn't remember the actual prompt), and, after that, the system shut down. Here's her actual message to me: "I got a CD from Dell, to reload my Windows XP. I got my laptop to boot from the CD. It loaded lots of files. Drivers and such. And now it wants to put a FAT partition or something like that on. In order to do that it will erase what I have on the hard drive. (I think) But then, when I clicked ENTER the whole thing just went blank which makes me think - yes - the power cord needs to be replaced. But I'm wondering do you think the hard drive is okay if it's working this far, loading stuff on and giving me options? "AS before, when it starts without the CD booting it, which I can get it to do if I have patience, it gives me the same error message of it shut down to prevent damage to my computer and its a unbootable volume error (I'm not sure of these words, it's something like that)." My instinct at this point would be to reformat the C drive, then reinstall Windows. Perhaps the hard drive just got corrupted and needs to be reformatted. Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions? Also, is it possible to just boot from the Windows XP CD, without loading Windows from the hard drive? Perhaps that might show whether it's a hard drive or Windows problem or none of the above. Thanks! Neil |
#2
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Can't Boot Laptop
"Neil" wrote in message ... I have a friend who has a Dell laptop that will not boot. When she boots it with the power cord plugged in, it starts to boot and then shuts off. With the battery removed, it seems to work better, but still shuts off. Sometimes she can get it to boot a little into Windows, but then gives her an error message (see below), and then shuts down. Though it seems to me to be a hardware issue, someone told her to reinstall Windows (XP Home). So she put in the Windows disk, and it began the reinstall. It actually got much further than it had in the past when just trying to boot. So that made me think that maybe it was something related to Windows. She said she got to a part asking if she wanted to create a FAT partition or something to that effect (she doesn't remember the actual prompt), and, after that, the system shut down. Here's her actual message to me: "I got a CD from Dell, to reload my Windows XP. I got my laptop to boot from the CD. It loaded lots of files. Drivers and such. And now it wants to put a FAT partition or something like that on. In order to do that it will erase what I have on the hard drive. (I think) But then, when I clicked ENTER the whole thing just went blank which makes me think - yes - the power cord needs to be replaced. But I'm wondering do you think the hard drive is okay if it's working this far, loading stuff on and giving me options? "AS before, when it starts without the CD booting it, which I can get it to do if I have patience, it gives me the same error message of it shut down to prevent damage to my computer and its a unbootable volume error (I'm not sure of these words, it's something like that)." My instinct at this point would be to reformat the C drive, then reinstall Windows. Perhaps the hard drive just got corrupted and needs to be reformatted. Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions? Also, is it possible to just boot from the Windows XP CD, without loading Windows from the hard drive? Perhaps that might show whether it's a hard drive or Windows problem or none of the above. Thanks! Neil Can't boot from an XP cd, but you can with a Linux CD, if it boots that ok, it probably is a bad hard drive. |
#3
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Can't Boot Laptop
Thanks.
"RIAA" wrote in message ... "Neil" wrote in message ... I have a friend who has a Dell laptop that will not boot. When she boots it with the power cord plugged in, it starts to boot and then shuts off. With the battery removed, it seems to work better, but still shuts off. Sometimes she can get it to boot a little into Windows, but then gives her an error message (see below), and then shuts down. Though it seems to me to be a hardware issue, someone told her to reinstall Windows (XP Home). So she put in the Windows disk, and it began the reinstall. It actually got much further than it had in the past when just trying to boot. So that made me think that maybe it was something related to Windows. She said she got to a part asking if she wanted to create a FAT partition or something to that effect (she doesn't remember the actual prompt), and, after that, the system shut down. Here's her actual message to me: "I got a CD from Dell, to reload my Windows XP. I got my laptop to boot from the CD. It loaded lots of files. Drivers and such. And now it wants to put a FAT partition or something like that on. In order to do that it will erase what I have on the hard drive. (I think) But then, when I clicked ENTER the whole thing just went blank which makes me think - yes - the power cord needs to be replaced. But I'm wondering do you think the hard drive is okay if it's working this far, loading stuff on and giving me options? "AS before, when it starts without the CD booting it, which I can get it to do if I have patience, it gives me the same error message of it shut down to prevent damage to my computer and its a unbootable volume error (I'm not sure of these words, it's something like that)." My instinct at this point would be to reformat the C drive, then reinstall Windows. Perhaps the hard drive just got corrupted and needs to be reformatted. Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions? Also, is it possible to just boot from the Windows XP CD, without loading Windows from the hard drive? Perhaps that might show whether it's a hard drive or Windows problem or none of the above. Thanks! Neil Can't boot from an XP cd, but you can with a Linux CD, if it boots that ok, it probably is a bad hard drive. |
#4
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Can't Boot Laptop
hard drive may be going bad.
"Neil" wrote in message ... I have a friend who has a Dell laptop that will not boot. When she boots it with the power cord plugged in, it starts to boot and then shuts off. With the battery removed, it seems to work better, but still shuts off. Sometimes she can get it to boot a little into Windows, but then gives her an error message (see below), and then shuts down. Though it seems to me to be a hardware issue, someone told her to reinstall Windows (XP Home). So she put in the Windows disk, and it began the reinstall. It actually got much further than it had in the past when just trying to boot. So that made me think that maybe it was something related to Windows. She said she got to a part asking if she wanted to create a FAT partition or something to that effect (she doesn't remember the actual prompt), and, after that, the system shut down. Here's her actual message to me: "I got a CD from Dell, to reload my Windows XP. I got my laptop to boot from the CD. It loaded lots of files. Drivers and such. And now it wants to put a FAT partition or something like that on. In order to do that it will erase what I have on the hard drive. (I think) But then, when I clicked ENTER the whole thing just went blank which makes me think - yes - the power cord needs to be replaced. But I'm wondering do you think the hard drive is okay if it's working this far, loading stuff on and giving me options? "AS before, when it starts without the CD booting it, which I can get it to do if I have patience, it gives me the same error message of it shut down to prevent damage to my computer and its a unbootable volume error (I'm not sure of these words, it's something like that)." My instinct at this point would be to reformat the C drive, then reinstall Windows. Perhaps the hard drive just got corrupted and needs to be reformatted. Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions? Also, is it possible to just boot from the Windows XP CD, without loading Windows from the hard drive? Perhaps that might show whether it's a hard drive or Windows problem or none of the above. Thanks! Neil |
#5
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Can't Boot Laptop
Thanks, guys, for your assistance. Here's an update on the situation.
I asked to her to repeat the previous steps, to try and do a Windows install from the CD, just to see if it crashed at the same place (trying to create the FAT partition). Here's the note I just got from her: "I just turned it on to try installing again and see if it got stuck in the same place (the FAT thing) and it lit up for a second and shut off. Then I tried it again and jiggled the cord and it shut off again. I don't think it's crashing, I think it's just shutting off because the cord is loose. I think I need a new cord." So I don't know what happened that first time (except that she's said that she was occasionally able to keep it on for more than a few seconds; maybe that was one of those times). But it does appear that perhaps that FAT thing was a fluke, and that it might be a power issue after all.... "Neil" wrote in message ... I have a friend who has a Dell laptop that will not boot. When she boots it with the power cord plugged in, it starts to boot and then shuts off. With the battery removed, it seems to work better, but still shuts off. Sometimes she can get it to boot a little into Windows, but then gives her an error message (see below), and then shuts down. Though it seems to me to be a hardware issue, someone told her to reinstall Windows (XP Home). So she put in the Windows disk, and it began the reinstall. It actually got much further than it had in the past when just trying to boot. So that made me think that maybe it was something related to Windows. She said she got to a part asking if she wanted to create a FAT partition or something to that effect (she doesn't remember the actual prompt), and, after that, the system shut down. Here's her actual message to me: "I got a CD from Dell, to reload my Windows XP. I got my laptop to boot from the CD. It loaded lots of files. Drivers and such. And now it wants to put a FAT partition or something like that on. In order to do that it will erase what I have on the hard drive. (I think) But then, when I clicked ENTER the whole thing just went blank which makes me think - yes - the power cord needs to be replaced. But I'm wondering do you think the hard drive is okay if it's working this far, loading stuff on and giving me options? "AS before, when it starts without the CD booting it, which I can get it to do if I have patience, it gives me the same error message of it shut down to prevent damage to my computer and its a unbootable volume error (I'm not sure of these words, it's something like that)." My instinct at this point would be to reformat the C drive, then reinstall Windows. Perhaps the hard drive just got corrupted and needs to be reformatted. Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions? Also, is it possible to just boot from the Windows XP CD, without loading Windows from the hard drive? Perhaps that might show whether it's a hard drive or Windows problem or none of the above. Thanks! Neil |
#6
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Can't Boot Laptop
Neil wrote:
Thanks, guys, for your assistance. Here's an update on the situation. I asked to her to repeat the previous steps, to try and do a Windows install from the CD, just to see if it crashed at the same place (trying to create the FAT partition). Here's the note I just got from her: "I just turned it on to try installing again and see if it got stuck in the same place (the FAT thing) and it lit up for a second and shut off. Then I tried it again and jiggled the cord and it shut off again. I don't think it's crashing, I think it's just shutting off because the cord is loose. I think I need a new cord." So I don't know what happened that first time (except that she's said that she was occasionally able to keep it on for more than a few seconds; maybe that was one of those times). But it does appear that perhaps that FAT thing was a fluke, and that it might be a power issue after all.... "Neil" wrote in message ... I have a friend who has a Dell laptop that will not boot. When she boots it with the power cord plugged in, it starts to boot and then shuts off. With the battery removed, it seems to work better, but still shuts off. Sometimes she can get it to boot a little into Windows, but then gives her an error message (see below), and then shuts down. Though it seems to me to be a hardware issue, someone told her to reinstall Windows (XP Home). So she put in the Windows disk, and it began the reinstall. It actually got much further than it had in the past when just trying to boot. So that made me think that maybe it was something related to Windows. She said she got to a part asking if she wanted to create a FAT partition or something to that effect (she doesn't remember the actual prompt), and, after that, the system shut down. Here's her actual message to me: "I got a CD from Dell, to reload my Windows XP. I got my laptop to boot from the CD. It loaded lots of files. Drivers and such. And now it wants to put a FAT partition or something like that on. In order to do that it will erase what I have on the hard drive. (I think) But then, when I clicked ENTER the whole thing just went blank which makes me think - yes - the power cord needs to be replaced. But I'm wondering do you think the hard drive is okay if it's working this far, loading stuff on and giving me options? "AS before, when it starts without the CD booting it, which I can get it to do if I have patience, it gives me the same error message of it shut down to prevent damage to my computer and its a unbootable volume error (I'm not sure of these words, it's something like that)." My instinct at this point would be to reformat the C drive, then reinstall Windows. Perhaps the hard drive just got corrupted and needs to be reformatted. Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions? Also, is it possible to just boot from the Windows XP CD, without loading Windows from the hard drive? Perhaps that might show whether it's a hard drive or Windows problem or none of the above. Thanks! Neil All this being second hand information, it is a little difficult to get a clear idea of the situation. But I am not convinced by the power cord story (what is the condition of the battery?) and I wonder if the machine simply shuts down because it is overheating. I suggest making sure this is not happening. Regards -- John Doue |
#7
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Can't Boot Laptop
I don't think it could be overheating, as it happens sometimes after the
machine is cold, and then it shuts down after a few seconds. I don't think the machine could overheat that quickly (unless there's a switch that's shorted that makes it *think* it's overheated). Prior to this non-ability to boot situation, this person for some months complained that her battery wasn't charging, that she'd only get about a half hour of use from a fully-charged battery (and this battery's only a year or two old). So my guess is that the power cord had trouble charging for a while. And now the battery's dead. So when the power is cut off, there is no battery reserve to fall back on, and the system shuts down. But I'm going over there tonight and will look at it first hand, and try this "jiggle the cord" thing. If you have any ideas or suggestions for me to try when I'm looking at it, fire away. Thanks! Neil "John Doue" wrote in message ... Neil wrote: Thanks, guys, for your assistance. Here's an update on the situation. I asked to her to repeat the previous steps, to try and do a Windows install from the CD, just to see if it crashed at the same place (trying to create the FAT partition). Here's the note I just got from her: "I just turned it on to try installing again and see if it got stuck in the same place (the FAT thing) and it lit up for a second and shut off. Then I tried it again and jiggled the cord and it shut off again. I don't think it's crashing, I think it's just shutting off because the cord is loose. I think I need a new cord." So I don't know what happened that first time (except that she's said that she was occasionally able to keep it on for more than a few seconds; maybe that was one of those times). But it does appear that perhaps that FAT thing was a fluke, and that it might be a power issue after all.... "Neil" wrote in message ... I have a friend who has a Dell laptop that will not boot. When she boots it with the power cord plugged in, it starts to boot and then shuts off. With the battery removed, it seems to work better, but still shuts off. Sometimes she can get it to boot a little into Windows, but then gives her an error message (see below), and then shuts down. Though it seems to me to be a hardware issue, someone told her to reinstall Windows (XP Home). So she put in the Windows disk, and it began the reinstall. It actually got much further than it had in the past when just trying to boot. So that made me think that maybe it was something related to Windows. She said she got to a part asking if she wanted to create a FAT partition or something to that effect (she doesn't remember the actual prompt), and, after that, the system shut down. Here's her actual message to me: "I got a CD from Dell, to reload my Windows XP. I got my laptop to boot from the CD. It loaded lots of files. Drivers and such. And now it wants to put a FAT partition or something like that on. In order to do that it will erase what I have on the hard drive. (I think) But then, when I clicked ENTER the whole thing just went blank which makes me think - yes - the power cord needs to be replaced. But I'm wondering do you think the hard drive is okay if it's working this far, loading stuff on and giving me options? "AS before, when it starts without the CD booting it, which I can get it to do if I have patience, it gives me the same error message of it shut down to prevent damage to my computer and its a unbootable volume error (I'm not sure of these words, it's something like that)." My instinct at this point would be to reformat the C drive, then reinstall Windows. Perhaps the hard drive just got corrupted and needs to be reformatted. Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions? Also, is it possible to just boot from the Windows XP CD, without loading Windows from the hard drive? Perhaps that might show whether it's a hard drive or Windows problem or none of the above. Thanks! Neil All this being second hand information, it is a little difficult to get a clear idea of the situation. But I am not convinced by the power cord story (what is the condition of the battery?) and I wonder if the machine simply shuts down because it is overheating. I suggest making sure this is not happening. Regards -- John Doue |
#8
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Can't Boot Laptop
Neil wrote: *** and top-posted. Fixed ***
"John Doue" wrote Neil wrote: "Neil" wrote I have a friend who has a Dell laptop that will not boot. When she boots it with the power cord plugged in, it starts to boot and then shuts off. With the battery removed, it seems to work better, but still shuts off. Sometimes she can get it to boot a little into Windows, but then gives her an error message (see below), and then shuts down. Though it seems to me to be a hardware issue, someone told her to reinstall Windows (XP Home). So she put in the Windows disk, and it began the reinstall. It actually got much further than it had in the past when just trying to boot. So that made me think that maybe it was something related to Windows. She said she got to a part asking if she wanted to create a FAT partition or something to that effect (she doesn't remember the actual prompt), and, after that, the system shut down. Here's her actual message to me: "I got a CD from Dell, to reload my Windows XP. I got my laptop to boot from the CD. It loaded lots of files. Drivers and such. And now it wants to put a FAT partition or something like that on. In order to do that it will erase what I have on the hard drive. (I think) But then, when I clicked ENTER the whole thing just went blank which makes me think - yes - the power cord needs to be replaced. But I'm wondering do you think the hard drive is okay if it's working this far, loading stuff on and giving me options? "AS before, when it starts without the CD booting it, which I can get it to do if I have patience, it gives me the same error message of it shut down to prevent damage to my computer and its a unbootable volume error (I'm not sure of these words, it's something like that)." My instinct at this point would be to reformat the C drive, then reinstall Windows. Perhaps the hard drive just got corrupted and needs to be reformatted. Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions? Also, is it possible to just boot from the Windows XP CD, without loading Windows from the hard drive? Perhaps that might show whether it's a hard drive or Windows problem or none of the above. I asked to her to repeat the previous steps, to try and do a Windows install from the CD, just to see if it crashed at the same place (trying to create the FAT partition). Here's the note I just got from her: "I just turned it on to try installing again and see if it got stuck in the same place (the FAT thing) and it lit up for a second and shut off. Then I tried it again and jiggled the cord and it shut off again. I don't think it's crashing, I think it's just shutting off because the cord is loose. I think I need a new cord." So I don't know what happened that first time (except that she's said that she was occasionally able to keep it on for more than a few seconds; maybe that was one of those times). But it does appear that perhaps that FAT thing was a fluke, and that it might be a power issue after all.... All this being second hand information, it is a little difficult to get a clear idea of the situation. But I am not convinced by the power cord story (what is the condition of the battery?) and I wonder if the machine simply shuts down because it is overheating. I suggest making sure this is not happening. I don't think it could be overheating, as it happens sometimes after the machine is cold, and then it shuts down after a few seconds. I don't think the machine could overheat that quickly (unless there's a switch that's shorted that makes it *think* it's overheated). Prior to this non-ability to boot situation, this person for some months complained that her battery wasn't charging, that she'd only get about a half hour of use from a fully-charged battery (and this battery's only a year or two old). So my guess is that the power cord had trouble charging for a while. And now the battery's dead. So when the power is cut off, there is no battery reserve to fall back on, and the system shuts down. But I'm going over there tonight and will look at it first hand, and try this "jiggle the cord" thing. If you have any ideas or suggestions for me to try when I'm looking at it, fire away. There is a little bit of information in all that, and most of it effectively got lost due to the top-posting. I have fixed that so that it is understandable, but I have not snipped it down properly. I will leave that to you. Snip in complete paragraphs, and mark the snippage. I am accessing this through alt.comp.hardware. I gather that the system is a lap-top. Windows take forever to reinstall, so I believe the failure without a line cord is a chimera. However there is no real reason it should fail. The fact that you are lacking any system is very awkward. The old system is long gone, so it might be well to start with a different installation. I suggest Ubuntu, because you can get the installation disks free, and besides it is a better system. Start from Ubuntu.com. At any rate a new line cord is a cheap trial. Bad connectors are another thing. Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all irrelevant material. I fixed this one. See the following links: -- http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html http://www.caliburn.nl/topposting.html http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html http://cfaj.freeshell.org/google/ (taming google) http://members.fortunecity.com/nnqweb/ (newusers) -- Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com |
#9
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Can't Boot Laptop
"Neil" wrote in message ... I have a friend who has a Dell laptop that will not boot. When she boots it with the power cord plugged in, it starts to boot and then shuts off. With the battery removed, it seems to work better, but still shuts off. Sometimes she can get it to boot a little into Windows, but then gives her an error message (see below), and then shuts down. Though it seems to me to be a hardware issue, someone told her to reinstall Windows (XP Home). So she put in the Windows disk, and it began the reinstall. It actually got much further than it had in the past when just trying to boot. So that made me think that maybe it was something related to Windows. She said she got to a part asking if she wanted to create a FAT partition or something to that effect (she doesn't remember the actual prompt), and, after that, the system shut down. Here's her actual message to me: "I got a CD from Dell, to reload my Windows XP. I got my laptop to boot from the CD. It loaded lots of files. Drivers and such. And now it wants to put a FAT partition or something like that on. In order to do that it will erase what I have on the hard drive. (I think) But then, when I clicked ENTER the whole thing just went blank which makes me think - yes - the power cord needs to be replaced. But I'm wondering do you think the hard drive is okay if it's working this far, loading stuff on and giving me options? "AS before, when it starts without the CD booting it, which I can get it to do if I have patience, it gives me the same error message of it shut down to prevent damage to my computer and its a unbootable volume error (I'm not sure of these words, it's something like that)." My instinct at this point would be to reformat the C drive, then reinstall Windows. Perhaps the hard drive just got corrupted and needs to be reformatted. Any ideas/thoughts/suggestions? Also, is it possible to just boot from the Windows XP CD, without loading Windows from the hard drive? Perhaps that might show whether it's a hard drive or Windows problem or none of the above. Thanks! Neil Well, I looked at the laptop first-hand tonight. I couldn't even get it to turn on! By jiggling the wire, every once in a while I could get the lights to flash for a second, but that was it. My son came and helped me (thank goodness for kids, right?...) and found that by holding the wire straight out at the point where it connected to the tip that inserted into the power socket, he could get the power to stay on, and the laptop to boot. We tried holding the wire straight out without pushing the tip; and we tried pushing the tip without touching the wire. The former got it to turn on, while the latter did nothing. So we concluded that the problem was with the wire, and the socket itself was fine. (Indeed, when one looked at the wire where it connected to the tip, one could see that it was very loose, and would hang straight down. Obviously some wires are loose in there. I surmise that she must have damaged it by having the wire bent back, tucked under the laptop while she used it, or something to that effect.) Once the computer was able to remain on, with my son at the helm, holding the wire steady, Windows booted fine -- except that it got to the message that I believe she was originally talking about: "Unmountable boot volume... Windows will shut down to prevent damage to the computer," with the blue screen with white letters, etc. So I figure that sometime when the computer shut down instantaneously, either the hard drive was damaged, or at least the data on it got screwed up. Either way, we're ordering a new cable, and will go from there. Once that's done, I guess the next thing would be to do a Windows reinstall with a reformat, and see if that succeeds. The fact that (per my original message) she had previously gotten to the point where Windows was going to recreate the FAT partition, and then it just shut off, indicates that the hard drive might be irreparably damaged. But, OTOH, she may have just jiggled the wire when she hit the Enter key. :-) Anyway, thanks to everyone for your assistance. Will let you know how it goes. Neil |
#10
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Can't Boot Laptop
Snipped a lot.
Either way, we're ordering a new cable, and will go from there. Once that's done, I guess the next thing would be to do a Windows reinstall with a reformat, and see if that succeeds. .. You could first try a System Repair Neil. That would save all her settings/data/etc. bw.. |
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