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Friend has startup problems - advice needed
pagangirl
Posts: 391 Forumite
in Techie Stuff
Hope someone can help. Asking for friend - cannot startup computer - Packard-Bell - roughly 4 - 7 years old.
All she gets when loading up is black screen saying "Disk read error"
info says press different keys to reboot/startup etc. All keys just bring same message back. Cannot startup/get into windows at all.
Does anyone have any idea what's going on please?
Many Thanks
All she gets when loading up is black screen saying "Disk read error"
info says press different keys to reboot/startup etc. All keys just bring same message back. Cannot startup/get into windows at all.
Does anyone have any idea what's going on please?
Many Thanks
When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on :eek:
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Comments
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they dont happen to have a usb stick in the front of the machine do they0
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Nope definitely not but thanks anyway.When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on :eek:
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is there anything in the CD drive? if there is nothing in there, then it may be the hard drive, can you get into the bios (hitting f2, f8 or delete when the machine starts up) and does it show any hard drive?0
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Can't get into bios - can't get in to anything !When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on :eek:
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the bios loads before anything else, the error shown is specific to trying to load an operating system, which happens after the bios has loaded.
there must be some way into the bios, if not then theres not much else you can do with the laptop0 -
All she gets when loading up is black screen saying "Disk read error"
That should be after the BIOS so its gone through BIOS stage .
BIOS press either delete or F2 on bootup .
Disk read error is often wrong boot sequence in the BIOS floppy in the drive cd in the drive or failed hard drive .
jje0 -
Unfortunately it seems like a dead hard drive.
Could also be a loose cable connecting Hard drive or faulty cable.
Packard Bell is F2 as soon as system starts (should be a Purple screen with the PB logo on startup) and the connected IDE (such as hard drive and DVD drive should appear)0 -
Thanks for all your help - will take info up to friend's and see what happens - wish me luck !!!When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on :eek:
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Hard Drive should be removable, so flip over the lappy and look for a tubular Cylinder image. There will be 2 or 4 screws holding it in place and a fairly obvious piece of plastic on the side of the laptop acting as a cover plate. Undo the screws and pull it free by pulling the cover plate, then push it back in firmly - this doesn't work often, but it might save you a few quid.IT Field Service Engineer, 20 years with screwdriver and hammer
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rdpro - it's a tower unit not a lappy, can we still try same thing???When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on :eek:
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