Laptop help.

[simon84]

Got an old Acer laptop that I was using to run my NEQ6. The other night I turned it on, got the Windows loading screen, then a flash of a blue screen of death and then restarted itself. If I leave it it keeps going through the cycle. Thought it was more than likely a hardware failure and decided to consign it to the pile of laptops in the cupboard.

Here's the dilemma, just used my sons laptop, 9 months old, exact same problem. Had a google, cant find anything related to trojans or viruses that could cause this. Fully scanned the other 3 computers on my network, nothing.

Will a format and reinstall cure this?

[trudie]

Hi,

I had exactly the same problem some months ago, a complete system restore does cure the problem however you will loose everything in the memory, and it will be restored to original factory settings.

HTH

Regards

Trudie

[Beyond_Vision]

It is probably a corruption of the start up files. Which version of windows is it. If it's XP press F8 during bootup should take to a options screen. If it gets this far select 'last known good configuration'. If this fails you can use the installation disc and boot from it and try to do a repair from the recovery consule this will allow you to get to a dos command line prompt where you can run a file called

chkdisk /R

to run a disk check and repair.

Regards

Kevin

[Cornelius Varley]

I had a similar problem recently. Firstly try this - boot into safe-mode so that the minimum of drivers are loaded - BSOD is usually a driver failure or can be assocciated with a corrupt pagefile.sys file. Set the size of the virtual memory to zero and then reboot. If you still get the BSOD note down the error code and check the Microsoft website, there are sometimes clues there to the remedy.

Peter

[simon84]

Thanks all for the quick replies.

Have considered a restart but thought I'd see what the general consensus was first. Not worried about the content as everything is backed up to the main PC through the network.

"Holds his head in shame." Its Vista based.....

If it is a corruption of the startup files then maybe I have been infected somehow as for 2 laptops to come down with the same problem what else could it be.

No chance of booting into safe mode. It starts loading what it needs, freezes, flashes the BSOD and restarts.

Looks like its time to restart both machines. Nothing like a fresh laptop to start again with.

[Merlin66]

This happen with me last year on my ACER/ XPsp3 and I found the battery was dud.

I bought a new battery and have now had the last six months trouble free ( touch wood!)

[simon84]

I had similar problems regarding the battery on my Acer so I just removed and only run it on the mains adapter now.

My next attempt will be to run the repair option from the Windows Vista disc.......now where did I put it?????

[simon84]

One laptop fully restored. The other one is in a bit of trouble.

The one that isnt working is one of those netbooks with no dvd drive, so I've used the HD-DVD drive that I had for my xbox 360. All boots up lovely from the restore cd that came with the netbook. I've only done a quick format of the solid state hard drive and then attempted to run the windows installation.

It starts copying over the setup files, gets to 70% and then says it cant copy over some files. Tried skipping but its all of the remaining 30% that cant be copied. I know its not the cd as I used it to restore the other laptop as I couldnt find my copy of Vista anywhere.

Tried doing it again and get to the same point and it fails.

Not sure what else to try.

Anyone have any ideas?

[arad85]

Sounds like the SSD laptop is running out of disk space. At a guess, it will have had a cut down Windows put on it to start with...

[simon84]

Sounds like the SSD laptop is running out of disk space. At a guess, it will have had a cut down Windows put on it to start with...

Shouldnt be, its got 55gb of space for a new installation. Its had a quick format. It has what HP call "Windows XP for low cost machines." I've just re-installed Windows from that disc on my Acer and its used approx 3gb of space.

Is there any way to do a low level format of a solid state maybe?

The same thing happened to two laptops both running different versions of Windows suggests a virus or something to me rather than a hardware problem.

When doing the re-install before it copies over the setup files it says that hdd isnt recognised due to being too full, an error, or formatted with the wrong system and gives the option of a full or a quick format. The quick format works fine but then the copying over of files gets stuck at 70% everytime or if I do a full format it stays at 0% for over an hour and dosnt go anywhere.

Feel a bit bad now that I have my laptop back up and running and my sons is sitting there looking like glorified paper weight.

[SkyExplorer]

Hi,

Sounds to me like it could be problem with SSD itself. When you start to re-install XP you get the option to delete the partition that the existing verison of XP is on (C:\ normally) and then create a new partition and then format that partition to say NTFS.

Is this where you are getting stuck at 0% when doing a full format?

When you do a quick format, do you get the option afterwards asking what partition to install windows into?

[simon84]

Yes that is where I get stuck at 0% when attempting a full install.

If memory serves me right once it has completed the quick format the installation takes over and attempts to install using the formatted partition.

[SkyExplorer]

mmm, sounds to me as if there is a problem with the ssd. Yeah I think after you choose the unformated partition you are asked to format and then it starts to copy the setup files.

Did you try formating as FAT32 or NTFS?

[simon84]

Problem sorted, there was a harddisk check program built into the bios, ran that and within 2 seconds of starting it it said "Critical harddisk failure, replace harddisk"

Dosnt give an option to format in fat32 so NTFS is the only way.

[SkyExplorer]

arr - Sounded like it was hardware failure.

With XP/Vista etc you get 4 options once you have deleted and recreated the partion to format as FAT32 quick and normal, and format as NTFS quick and normal.

Generally best to format as NTFS like you were doing anyway.

Cheers

[Iris]

Well it looks like you got your problem sorted. I have had to repair 4 machines in the last few months with exactly these symptoms, I'm thinking a windows update isn't helping somewhere.

The machines in question varied from an old desktop running XP to a couple of laftops and a few month old lappie running Vista.

In all cases the same critical system file was the point of failure (sorry I cant quite place my finger on the actual file).

In three of the cases the Vista CD rom repaired the underlying corruption (after failures to fix under knoppix and erd commander) - though oddly enough Vista set up reported that it had been unable to repair in each case, however a reboot proved it wrong.

The final disk resisted all attemtps to repair the file structure.

BUT in all cases only the system files were corrupt preventing booting, the disk was otherwise fully accessible for reading/writing - this is true even for the last disk that I had not been able to recover to a bootable state. As it happened that was on an ancient PC and I gave my sister, whose machien it was, an old but newer PC of my own.

So the moral of the tale is - even if you have this problem and cant fix it with the usual /MBR tricks or with a recovery disk and especially if you have data on the disk you dont want to lose (although I am sure you keep an independent back up right! don't you?) then you might still be able to at least recover the data by mounting it as a second drive - that is if you have another one to creat a new boot disk from - well they are dirt cheap these days.

As an aside all four systems are now runnung as sweet as ever.

[simon84]

Alway back everything up. Going to replace the solid state drive out of my sons laptop and see if i can connect the old drive to my main computer, which is running Windows 7 and has had no problems whatsoever since setting it up, and see if i can format it that way.

No possible solution is touching that drive whilst its in the lappie, if the built in drive check is saying replace it then I've got to consider that maybe its telling the truth.......

What I cant work out still is how it can happen to two laptops with one running XP and the other Vista and it happen at the same time. I have four computers on my network and the other two are running Vista and Windows 7 and they are both fine. Its either a goverment/MI5 conspiracy or I was just plain old unlucky.

Just realised that my sons laptop is only 9 months old......now where is that reciept.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Speaking as a computer scientist, it is an old adage:

There are two classes of users, those that have lost data, and those that will lose data. The two are NOT mutually exclusive

A very few have learned the hard way (I assume) to BACK EVERYTHING UP!! Congrats on the foresight!

[simon84]

I've been backing stuff up ever since I stopped using my Amiga 500 and got my first 486 dx66 PC.

Ah those were the days. When 4 megabytes of memory was almost £100.......and harddrives were not much bigger than a floppy disc...lol.

Now you can get a terabyte for less than sixty quid.......wonder how much longer we'll be waiting for liquid state computers......I want one that glows blue......

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

When I was doing my thesis on my 25MHz 386 with co processor and a MASSIVE 4 MB, and 88MB SCSI drive (don't ask what that cost) I did daily back-ups of my work directory (on a pile of floppy disks), we ran two full backup tapes every week and these were stored in different locations, AND I kept a weekly pile of floppy backup disks at home. I could never lose more than one day's work.

And now I am sitting here with two 8GB memory sticks and with two 0.5TB external backup drives (I now rsync my linux stuff with work, beats dragging a donkey load of disks!)

Is anyone thinking 640 TB is enough?

Cheers

Michael