laptop problems?

Question

Hi there, i have and HPZD8228EA laptop running windows XP, last night someone turned it off by justing holding the on/off button so it didn't have time to shut down properly. Now when i try and turn it on it just shows a blank black screen with the mouse present. I have tried the options of starting in last previously known settings and safe mode but i don't really know what to do.

I would be brilliant if someone could help me with this problem, although i would like to keep the stuff on my hard drive as i have quite alot of music.

Many Thanks

Answer 1

Hey,

I found that the best way to do this is to unplug the power and remove the battery for 30 seconds. Failing this, you may want to download a copy of Windows XP Lite.

You can put that on a USB and boot your system from it.
It can be found here:

http://www.warez-bb.org/viewtopic.php?t=663449&highlight=

Download the files on that page, put them on a USB Stick and restart your computer with the USB in. You may have to press DEL or F1 to access the BIOS and set it to boot from USB First. This is if your Laptop allows booting from USB.

Then when you have accessed your computer, You should try and backup when you can and use the original XP Disk to install it.

You can find the XP Discs for download if you do not have it, but you MUST use your own product key (found on bottom of laptop or XP case) or otherwise it is illegal.

I wish you the best of luck, and if you still need help, email me:

[e-mail]


Tom Turner

Answer 2

Okay, there are many ways to do this, Tommy's way is quite good to be fair but not all laptops support booting from USB.

The way I do it is I download an Ubuntu Live CD from http://www.ubuntu.com/. Put this in the CD drive and boot from it, it will not make any changes to your computer at all. You can then plug in a USB pen or an external hard drive and transfer data from the hard drive to it (the hard drive in Ubuntu is called 'hda1' so just transfer stuff that way).

When data is backed up, shut down Ubuntu and take the CD out. Then find the recovery discs that came with the laptop, put it in and restore the Windows installation.

Alternatively, if you have a Windows CD, boot from it and try to do a repair installation.

Your computer may also have a recovery partition instead of a recovery disc, if this is the case then just press F10 as the BIOS is loading (it may not be F10 but it usually is).

Good luck

Answer 3

Turn on your PC, keep tapping F8 for safe mode, select command prompts, type in msconfig and then press enter on your keyboard, click and highlight system restore and click launch and then wait.