PLEASE HELP Sick Laptop

Donnie

asininity wrote: »

The LiveCD runs from the CD not the HD, therefore the software on the HD is not touched. Roger so far;). Once booted up into the desktop you can then mount the HD....

That's not quite what you wrote at 6.15pm. Take a little more time and do it right.

asininity

Donnie wrote: »

That's not quite what you wrote at 6.15pm. Take a little more time and do it right.

Do what right read it or write out a long explanation when generally as soon as you mention linux you get ignored? I didn't go into detail because the OP would ask for details if they were interested.

davb

I have seen a couple of Dell laptops get confused by thinking there is an external monitor connected (and there isn't), and it looks similar to this.

Try holding down the blue Fn key on the bottom left of the keyboard, then press the CRT/LCD button (F8) once at first, and if nothing happens, press it again. It is a 3-way toggle CRT (external) - LCD (internal - Both.

Harrietxxx

davb wrote: »

I have seen a couple of Dell laptops get confused by thinking there is an external monitor connected (and there isn't), and it looks similar to this.

Try holding down the blue Fn key on the bottom left of the keyboard, then press the CRT/LCD button (F8) once at first, and if nothing happens, press it again. It is a 3-way toggle CRT (external) - LCD (internal - Both.

Thanks, I tried this but no luck. I have taken the back off and the RAM seems to be seated ok. I have downloaded the other thing to disk but it looks like the cd drive isn't working either, what a pile of poo for 16 months old. Can I load it from an external CD drive if I can borrow one?

I have also found all the original system disks, could these be loaded from an external drive?

Thanks for everyone's help so far :A

Harrietxxx

KingL wrote: »

There is a setting in bios that tells the computer which drive(s) and in what sequence to look for the software to boot the computer into action. asinity's hypothesis was that your computer was setup to look at either a USB drive or a drive other than C: for the software. If you had a USB key or disc in that didn't contain boot software, then the computer may never get around to looking at c: for the boot software. You could get around this by changing the bios settings to look at C: first. If you don't have any devices/discs in at the moment, this approach is probably redundant now, but for the record, you get to the bios setup by tapping the F1 key as the computer is starting up.

If you don't have a boot disc that came with the computer and if your antivirus has never prompted you to create one, you could get one from here http://www.bootdisk.com/

Alternatively, just google for bootdisc/bootdisk . You will need to have another computer and the ability to burn a CD as an image. I think that you can find ones that you can download to a USB key. You may have to format it to be bootable first. Don't do anything yet, tho. Someone may come along with an easier solution...

I have managed to bring up the BIOS screen. In the boot sequence bit it has no 1 Diskette drive, 2 Internal HDD, 3 USB storage device, 4 CD/DVD drive. Does this mean that it is trying to boot from some diskette drive, whatever that is? Do I need to change the order somehow to look at Internal HDD first or will it look at it anyway?

Thanks

davb

The boot order just means it will look at that device first - if it is a removable device without media, it will just skip to the next one in the list - so you should be ok. Having said that, strange things happen, so it's not unreasonable to put the Internal HDD to the first device.

The other thing you could try is the Dell system diagnostics. These are sometimes a on a CD, but most likely on a hidden partition on the hard drive - accessed by pressing a key (probably F12) on boot. If you can get into this and run it, it should tell you what is wrong - the catch is, if the fault is on the hard drive, the diagnostics will probably not load, as that is where they are stored.

Harrietxxx

davb wrote: »

The boot order just means it will look at that device first - if it is a removable device without media, it will just skip to the next one in the list - so you should be ok. Having said that, strange things happen, so it's not unreasonable to put the Internal HDD to the first device.

The other thing you could try is the Dell system diagnostics. These are sometimes a on a CD, but most likely on a hidden partition on the hard drive - accessed by pressing a key (probably F12) on boot. If you can get into this and run it, it should tell you what is wrong - the catch is, if the fault is on the hard drive, the diagnostics will probably not load, as that is where they are stored.

I have managed to get into the F12 diagnostics, thanks. It is still running but has come up with the following error.

Hard Drive - DST short Test
Fail
Error Code 2000-0142
Hard Drive 1 - self test unsuccessfull status 78

Anyone know what this error is?

Thanks

Harrietxxx

Harrietxxx wrote: »

I have managed to get into the F12 diagnostics, thanks. It is still running but has come up with the following error.

Hard Drive - DST short Test
Fail
Error Code 2000-0142
Hard Drive 1 - self test unsuccessfull status 78

Anyone know what this error is?

Thanks

To answer my own question having followed the error on the dell website, it looks like the hard drive may need to be replaced, unless anyone knows differently

KingL

you've used this

then this wizard, yes ?

Harrietxxx

KingL wrote: »

you've used this

then this wizard, yes ?

Indeed I have, next step to ring Dell I suppose, I just wondered if anyone had come across this before.