Laptop not booting

Steve_xx

Can you explain further what should have happened?

daily_2

It should boot into a linux environment, lots of text on screen, followed by a graphical environment similar to your netbook

Try the CD in a different pc, to see if you can boot from it. You might have to change the boot order in the bios, to put cd first, not everything supports the F12 menu.

Failing that, you could try a winpe environment (based on windows), but it is a faff to create the disk, and you will probably have to ask your friend to help, as you need a valid xp/vista CD or installation to create it.

Steve_xx

Oh right I see what you mean. No, neither the cd nor dvd did that on my mates Vista laptop. His Vista laptop is turned on and we just tried both cd and dvd in the drive and it detected that it was there and seemed to be regarding it as containing pictures. I'm wondering if we've downloaded it incorrectly. We downloaded it and it was zipped,we unzipped it and then burned it to disk and it was an ISO file.

On my problemous Dell laptop I have already changed the boot order in the BIOS so that the cd/dvd drive is first.

daily_2

When you look at the CD, in explorer, it looks like this?

daily_2

There is a list of alternatives here, not every one will let you fix your problem, but at least you will be able to get to the point where you have been able to boot into an alternative environment (ie your are confident of the iso burning and F12 booting procedure)

http://www.livecdlist.com/

daily_2

an alternative is to buy a 2.5" usb hard disk caddy or lead, and stick your drive in it, then attach to your mates pc, then run chkdsk, or get your data off, or fix the corrupt registry.

Steve_xx

daily wrote: »

There is a list of alternatives here, not every one will let you fix your problem, but at least you will be able to get to the point where you have been able to boot into an alternative environment (ie your are confident of the iso burning and F12 booting procedure)

http://www.livecdlist.com/

If I can find one that will let me boot it up that would be good. Then I could remove the files I need to keep and then I'd be happy to restore it to factory standard.

daily_2

Hold on, probably a bad idea, no gui.

Steve_xx

I dont mind wasting a disk so will give it a try. Got some rewritable disks also if I run out.

daily_2

Do you know anyone with an XP CD?

a pe disk is better/easier than linux (once you have created the disk - this is the hard part)

http://www.ubcd4win.com/howto.htm

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/