Laptop won't boot

[Tim Cullis]

My Dell Inspiron 8600 is playing hard to get.

When I switch it on it goes through the POST screen then just at the time it should start loading XP everything goes quiet with just a blinking cursor in the top left of the screen.

I've tried starting off an XP CD. Again it goes through POST, there's a message saying 'press any key to boot from CD...', then the CD spins up with 'Setup is inspecting your configuration', then a big silence as the CD spins down.

I can load the diagnostics CD and everything seems OK.

Useful advice welcome.

 

[Fanum]

Sounds like the HD has gone tits up.

Try loading the OS install cd - at one point, it'll do a disc inspection and tell you if that's OK......if it is, it'll carry on installing over the last one...you'll lose patches and have to set it all up again but you should keep all the old files...as long as you can remember the exact name of the old admin account and re-use that.

If you do manage to reload the OS, it's time to back up all the info quickly in case it happens again.

 

[Tim Cullis]

That's what I was doing in step 2 above. Initially I thought it might be the boot sector on the HDD.

 

[Fanum]

That's what I was doing in step 2 above. Initially I thought it might be the boot sector on the HDD.

missed that line

 

[Fanum]

Tim...try taking out the RAM chip/s, then reboot....if you don't hear beeps on the POST, the chances are the MOBO is dead, but it is worth trying a new bios battery in it first.

If you do hear beeps, the MOBO is probably ok, so clean the chips contacts very carefully and re-insert and try again.

If you can get into the bios, check that the settings haven't changed (flat battery etc) and that the device is set to boot from the HD

 

[Clive]

Just after POST - try hitting F8 and see if you get the (Windows XP) boot options. If you do try the safe mode one and see if it is hitting a driver problem. If you don't see the XP options, the HD is probably screwed.

Is it a SATA drive?

Dunno if you have another machine - but you could try creating a Bart PE CD with network drivers and see if that will boot - you may then be able to recover the HD with e.g. TestDisk

 

[DollyRocket]

If you can get to the Windows setup inspection screen from the XP CD then chances are that everything is at least nominally working (memory / graphics etc)

It does sound like a fried HD circuit board - Had this a few times before with customer machines.
1. Does it detect the drive in the BIOS?
2. Is the Drive SMART aware (I don't know how old your hardware is)
3. Can you take the drive out, get one of the USB/IDE/SATA adapters from ebuyer and see if you can access the drive on another machine.

-or- if you have access to another 2.5" HD see if you can swap it in the laptop?

I take it that the HD access LED is not permanently on? You could disconnect the HD (take it out) then re-run the XP setup and see if it detects that there is no drive present? (this would point towards the drive circuitry or drive itself.)

 

[Magwych]

Does your Diagnostics CD have any disk utilities ? If so, can it see the hard disc, better, can it run any HD diagnostics ?

This sounds similar to an issue my brothers Toshiba had. We had to to repartition, format, the reload to fix that.. But first things first, see if you can get the HD recognised by booting from the Diagnostics CD...