Really stuck - laptop problem

Dollardog

closed wrote: »

Take the battery out, and boot it, and hold down F10 permanently after waiting 1 second after switching on.

To take the disk out look for a flap on the right hand side and a securing screw or torx on the bottom, a disk is about the size of a credit card, which should give you an idea of the size of the opening or flap.

Why can't you boot with cd in now? F12 may work. Which key did you use last time, or did you change the boot order in the bios, if you ever got into it

Its not working from the battery, I don't think its any good, I have to use it on the mains. I haven't tried it with the battery taken out, but working it from the mains and having the battery in place, I can't get it to do anything with holding the F10 key down, tried no end of times.
When you say 'disc' do you mean drive? I know what a drive looks like as I have a couple of spare ones I was given with the laptop, I was going to get caddies for them to use as external drives, don't know what is on them as can't attach them to laptop at the moment.

No, I was never able to get into the BIOS so I haven't changed anything in there. When I power up with the CD in now, it does straight into Windows setup which it then tells me it can't do because it has no drive, (I know it has, it just says it hasn't), that was after pressing F2 as bskelhorn suggested.

Dollardog

closed wrote: »

I think it's an ide disk, so the sata stuff is a red herring, assuming it's working, you don't need to take it out.

http://www.impactcomputers.com/303527-001.html

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&lang=en&cc=us&docIndexId=64179&taskId=101&prodTypeId=321957&prodSeriesId=96306

I thought it would be an ide because of its age.

I can't try anything at the moment though as I haven't got it here.

Thanks a lot for your help though, much apprieciated.

closed

I'd stick one of the other drives in and start again. manuals are in the link above. You might need a torx style screwdriver, the screw holding the drive in usually has a disc logo next to it.

Dollardog

I don't even know if the spare drives I've been given can be used with it, although I was told they were used with it before I got it. One is an IBM drive, the other a Fujitsu.

closed

If they are ide, 9mm thick they can, assuming they are working (not the most reliable).

Come back when you have it with you and an hour or 2 to spare.

Richie-from-the-Boro

The repair manual for your puter is here, the truth of the matter Dollardog is that almost all solutions are outside your level of competence.

I don't mean that in a unpleasant way it's just that you can often do more damage by continuing to blindly do what others including myself tell you to do.

A repair man would work from DOS using Hirens or whatever and have it sorted in 5 minutes and an O/S on within 15 / 20 minutes.

Your starting point would be to take out [ as a~n~other poster said ] the RTC battery for ten minutes while disconnected from the mains power, that's the little watch battery not the big one you say does not work. It's behind the mini PCi component cover and clear the BIOS.

See if you can work out how to do that, the info is on page 5-18 of the repair manual.

That should allow the BIOS to see your hard drive which I believe is still there and still functional, then, when you can see the drive with your WinXP disk as I said in another post (1) DELETE the drive first, and (2 ) FORMAT the drive second, do it in that order

Dollardog

No offence taken, I know I don't know what I am doing.
Can't do it now anyway.
I already have a printed copy of that manual, I got it with the laptop.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Dollardog wrote: »

No offence taken, I know I don't know what I am doing.
Can't do it now anyway.
I already have a printed copy of that manual, I got it with the laptop.

Get someone to help you, it's really not that difficult, it's the same procedure techies use for clearing passwords when customers have forgotten them. If you have the manual just gently, patiently, follow instruction removing plastic and short the CMOS by pulling the battery you might end up with a working lappie.

An alternative is download Hirens, create a CD or USB boot disk and deal with the hard drive in DOS.

Best of luck.

Richie-from-the-Boro

Does anyone live near Dollardog ? and can give him a hand ?

Dollardog, you know where I live, if your anywhere near me I'll do it for you for free

Dollardog

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

Does anyone live near Dollardog ? and can give him a hand ?

Dollardog, you know where I live, if your anywhere near me I'll do it for you for free

Hi, not been around much for last couple of days....other problems.

LOL 'and can give him a hand' not 'him'...her.

Very grateful for the offer, thanks a lot, not near you though.
Donnie has very kindly offered to help me.
Still hoping to get it sorted on the thread. Have got a spare drive which I thought I might try what Closed said, and swap it, to see if it recognises that first. If not will be taking up Donnie's offer.
Haven't got it at the moment, its gone to a friend to see if they can help, not holding my breath though. So will no doubt be back.

Thanks again for everyone's help. So many people offering their advice and time free, its great.