Ancient XP laptop won't boot up....ideas before I bin it???!

DEBTMONKEY1A

Yes...I pain £40 on my local 2nd hand market (thought was good value until some fellow MSE'RS posted ones with fab spec on Ebay at £55...you live & learn!)...old XP, single core processor...crap battery.

Before everyone suggests I bin it is there any way to fix it? It used to work-allbeit slowly. When I turn it on I get a message about 'power supply interrupting/windows did not start' blah blah blah. Tried Safe mode, boot at last known configuration that works etc but just get the xp loading screen & then a 'click'-black screen & it tries to boot again...you get the picture.

Not going to spend ages on it but any ideas? I have a dvd/cd burner upstairs on main unit....anthing I can burn to put in DVD slot on Laptop??? I don't have any rescue or back up disks either.

That'll teach me...lol (!):beer:

GunJack

puppy linux??

John_Gray

Have you tried powering it off, disconnecting from the mains, removing the battery and leaving it out, connecting to the mains again and powering on?

I used to have an ancient laptop which would work only when the battery was not present!

DEBTMONKEY1A

Puppy linux????! What is that?

Quentin

DEBTMONKEY1A wrote: »

Puppy linux????! What is that?

Google it.

It's an alternative to windows

DEBTMONKEY1A

Thanks....I so would not have the technical ability to install it though. Ulness there's a fairly quick & easy solution its the way of the bin I'm afraid. If I get the F10 menu up....any ideas on what to hit/press? Tried the 'safe mode/safe+network/safe+command & resotore to previous configuration that worked'.

Mr.Generous

do you get to a dos window or can you get safe mode with command prompt?

DEBTMONKEY1A

I get the 'window' coming up at start saying 'windows problems due to power failure etc' but have tried the safe mode with command prompt to no avail. I'm running the 'primary hard drive test' from the f10 menu-will take an hour or so.

Is there anyway I could load some sort of 'rescue' boot up onto a USB stick?

Mr.Generous

Does the BIOS support booting from USB on an old laptop? You could always try going into the bios and make sure boot order is correct and hard drive is found and set as boot device. Restore default settings in BIOS won't do any harm, try anything!

DEBTMONKEY1A

Nipping out now....will try & will update later!

Moto2

There's a nice cut down XP repair disk available here

http://www.briteccomputers.co.uk/posts/bootable-recovery-console-iso-image-by-britec-2/

Download that (choose 'Download through your browser') and burn it to a CD/DVD
Boot the laptop from that

Then have a look here for a step by step guide
http://www.justanswer.com/computer/692hz-turn-laptop-page-again-last.html