E.System 4213 Laptop playing up

polybear

Hi,
I've just been given the above laptop by the previous owner, who's had it from new (just a couple of years old); it's got Vista installed. The previous owner had problems with it about 6 months ago but someone managed to sort it for her; she was warned that the harddrive was iffy and next time she probably wouldn't be so lucky.

After power on it displays the message "Windows Recovery Error". The option to startup windows normally doesn't work (it just takes you back to square one); selecting the startup repair option takes you to "The Tech Guys" and selecting "Start Microsoft Windows Repair Environment" doesn't cure the problem (the message "Startup Repair Cannot repair this computer automatically").

I've also tried the options "Start Vista System Restore" (no use as there are no system restore points) and "Start Full Destructive Recovery", which gave the message "Full Destructive Recovery Completed Successfully". However, after restarting the laptop it still didn't work; the MS Windows Repair Environment option was again unsuccessful.

There are no disks available for the laptop (backup disks, operating system disks etc.).

I do have a Windows XP Disk I could try loading up; alternatively is there anything else I can try first please? It was heading for the skip, so nothing to lose...

Many thanks.

Brian

5bellies_2

If the full destructive recovery fails to cure the fault, then the hard drive is probably shot.

Try the XP disc, let it fully format the drive. It should tell you quickly if the drive cannot be formatted.

davb

It depends on if you are prepared to spend anything on it. You can get a new hard drive from £35-40 and install your XP on it. They are easy to swap on a laptop.
Before you go down that route, you could find out the make of drive, and download the manufacturers diagnostic boot CD and make sure it is faulty - sometimes this will fix certain problems as well.