Boot disk

Flower_Power_mark_2

Hi All,

Sorry another Techie question.

Does anybody know where to get a Boot disk from. The system is a Windows Vista one if that makes a difference.

Cheers

JJ_Egan

You mean a Windows Vista disc to boot from ?? If so its the actual Windows Vista disc or do you mean one of the hundreds of boot discs . Why /What for you want may give better information . jje

Flower_Power_mark_2

JJ_Egan wrote: »

You mean a Windows Vista disc to boot from ?? If so its the actual Windows Vista disc or do you mean one of the hundreds of boot discs . Why /What for you want may give better information . jje

Thanks for the reply and apologies I should have been clearer. My Desktop packed up it was a Packard bell. I basically can't get the thing to load past the packard bell BiOS screen, it won't even go into safe mode. I sent it to get fixed and within a month it has gone again. They recon it could be a hard drive failure but I did a check on this a few days prior to it going down and there were no errors found.

What I want to do is load it back up via a boot disk and see if I can diagnose the problem myself. The sysetm is Windows Vista do you know what boot disk i need and if so where to get one from?

Cheers

mr_fishbulb

Ultimate boot CD has a number of hard disk diagnostics programs - http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

closed

what comes on screen after bios?

Rikki

When it goes into the bios screen, can you scroll across (top of the screen) to BOOT, then scroll down click on BOOT and see where it is looking to boot from. Make sure the hard drive is option 1 and follow instructions from there.

This has happened to me, sometimes I have to tell mine where to boot from.

JJ_Egan

The actual Windows Vista disc that you would use has to be bought from Packard Bell . If its just a case of trying to repair then borrow a Vista disc . Not going past the BIOS screen is unlikely to be the hard drive as the problem as you dont need a hard drive to access the BIOS . can you actually get into the BIOS if so make a note load settings and then look for a failsafe setting load this and see how far it boots . Not boot to BIOS first culprit faulty/loose RAM second loose Video card third PSU failing . jje

Flower_Power_mark_2

closed wrote: »

what comes on screen after bios?

Nothing usually but on very rare occassions I get a black screen followed by loads of white writing. At the bottom there is a % marker but when it gets to around 80ish it restarts and goes back to the Packard Bell BIOS screen!

Flower_Power_mark_2

JJ_Egan wrote: »

The actual Windows Vista disc that you would use has to be bought from Packard Bell . If its just a case of trying to repair then borrow a Vista disc . Not going past the BIOS screen is unlikely to be the hard drive as the problem as you dont need a hard drive to access the BIOS . can you actually get into the BIOS if so make a note load settings and then look for a failsafe setting load this and see how far it boots . Not boot to BIOS first culprit faulty/loose RAM second loose Video card third PSU failing . jje

Is PSU failing an expensive thing to fix?

I imagine it is this rather than the other 2 as I sent it into a computer workshop so imagine they would of picked up on any loose connections

Rikki

On my Packard Bell you can do a full recovery by pressing F11 (not vista but may work for you, worth a try)

Start computer and press F11 when the packard bell logo appears (as you would for safe mode). The computer should load the recovery program. Follow on screen instructions.

Non-destructive should keep all your personal data. When I had this problem this option didn't work for me and I went back to factory settings. Also I only had a blue screen on start up when I managed to do this.

Worth a try.

Rikki

Rikki wrote: »

When it goes into the bios screen, can you scroll across (top of the screen) to BOOT, then scroll down click on BOOT and see where it is looking to boot from. Make sure the hard drive is option 1 and follow instructions from there.

This has happened to me, sometimes I have to tell mine where to boot from.

Forgot to say press F2 to enter bios to get to this blue bios screen.