Help, Laptop won't start!!

a

I would not have said bios normally either. They did say they can no longer get into it and the f8 just beeps, and beeps when keys are pressed. Most things just time out eventually. Lets see

Sea_Shell

Update.

Those who said its the HDD, have a gold star!!

So, dropped  it in yesterday.  They  whipped  out the drive and plugged it into  another machine with data retrieval  software.   They said its struggling to  read it, but was making progress.   He said the drive is mechanically  failing, which I suppose  isnt surprising as its 10 years old.

So they will replace the drive with an equivalent SSD and reload all the data recovered, along with reinstalling Windows 10.

They also hope to be able to reinstall Office (word/excel)  too, but if not they'll download some open source software.   I do still have the original code key, but thats 10 years old too!

I'm  just waiting now for the call to collect.    Fingers crossed.

Im assuming we'll have lost our Edge bookmarks and cookies...but thats a minor irritation. 

grumpycrab

Sounds promising - unusual for a hard disk to go suddenly (unless dropped) - but perhaps not!
Cost should be £30-£50 for SSD (depending on size); £40-£60 for labour.  If data recovery/office reinstall is lengthy they may charge extra.  Fingers crossed those spreadsheets have survived!

Neil_Jones

grumpycrab said:

Sounds promising - unusual for a hard disk to go suddenly (unless dropped) - but perhaps not!

It'll have been going for a while.  There comes a point in all mechanical drives where it will deteriorate to a point where it becomes unusable, and in the case of a drive, it's sudden inability to boot is that point, as by the time it gets that far its pretty much stuffed.

debitcardmayhem

@Sea_Shell I am pleased that you may be getting it sorted, when you get it back create a windows 10 recovery or install USB, and then start doing regular backups to a different device and the cloud.

Sea_Shell

debitcardmayhem said:

@Sea_Shell I am pleased that you may be getting it sorted, when you get it back create a windows 10 recovery or install USB, and then start doing regular backups to a different device and the cloud.

Yes, I plan to set a diary alert to back up more regularly!

Although I'm not sure how to do a full back up including Windows etc.

grumpycrab

Sea_Shell said:

Yes, I plan to set a diary alert to back up more regularly!
Although I'm not sure how to do a full back up including Windows etc.

Perhaps this is for another thread but a simple file (spreadsheets, docs, pics...) backup is Windows Filehistory (just type filehistory in search and click on the command that comes up).  Complete backups aren't as necessary as they used to be becauae its so easy to reinstall Windows10. (possibly a different story if you have loads of programs/apps.)

Neil_Jones

Sea_Shell said:

debitcardmayhem said:

@Sea_Shell I am pleased that you may be getting it sorted, when you get it back create a windows 10 recovery or install USB, and then start doing regular backups to a different device and the cloud.

Yes, I plan to set a diary alert to back up more regularly!

Although I'm not sure how to do a full back up including Windows etc.

Personally I wouldn't bother (doing a full backup with Windows), because they become hard to recover as you still need a working installation of Windows to recover it with.  I dare say you could do it from the disk or the command prompt but by the time you've done all that its just as quick just to reload Windows in the first place.

No, I would suggest keeping your important data backed up.  Files, documents, pictures, maybe email - anything important, even if its just a case of dump them on an external device in a folder and keep 200Mb of useful stuff than rather than keeping 35Gb of Windows files, programs and whatever else that you won't even use/recover.

Sea_Shell

This message is brought to you...from my Laptop!!!

It's back and it's fixed!!!  (and for a reasonable price)

All my files appear to be here, and they were able to re-install Excel and Word too.

I need to do a couple of things still, like download Adobe and re-install my printer, but that's not a problem.

My files aren't sorted into folders like they were, but again, that can be jiggled about in time.

Edge bookmarks remain, but cookies lost....now to remember usernames and passwords!?!   -  I remembered them for here, so that's a start.

J_B

Well done, glad you got is sorted at a price you considered reasonable - would you care to share the £££, or not!