Suggestions for non-starting laptop?

Top Dog

If anyone can help I'd appreciate it.

Bought the Mrs a laptop before christmas, it's a HP Compaq Presario CQ57.
Everything went well til the other day. She turned it on and a white screen came up, something about it writing a BIOS image, then when finished, a continue to start up button showed on the screen. Waiting for it to finish the countdown or clicking on it sent it off to do the same thing again - write a BIOS image.

It did this a few times and did eventually start.
Worked fine when it did start.

Next day after it had been shut down, the same thing happened. Again, it worked fine when it did eventually start.

This morning she went to start it and not even the screen will come on.

Is there anything we can do?

She thought it might have started after a windows update (as has happened before on a previous laptop) so tried a system restore while it was working but that failed as well (she has restore points to go to, both automatic and ones she has done herself).

It was getting hot while trying to start, before going onto doing the BIOS image thing. Currently there's nothing happenening bar a few lights flashing and sound like a fan possibly?

Make and Model: HP Compaq Presario CQ57-366sa

Is it in warranty? I think so as it was only bought just before christmas

Operating System: Windows 7

CPU, RAM, GPU: Intel® Core™ i3-370M 2.4 GHz 4 GB DDR3

Software: What software are your running when you have the error?None coz it wont start!
What Anti-virus/Firewall/Internet Security software is your system running? AVG antivirus, Zonealarm firewall

bonzodog2

Sounds like a great candidate for return under warranty. If you have any files on it you want, try a Linux Live CD to find and save to an external drive/USB stick.

Top Dog

Thanks for the reply.
definitely not what she wants to hear though, there's a lot of work on it that hasnt been back up in the last week.

How do we do this Linux Live CD when it wont even turn on? Neither of us have any experience of Linux
And where do we find one?
Thanks

Alanstrainor

Do you have another computer in the house?

If so you could, pop out the hard drive of the messed up laptop and pop it into the other machine.

gouche

If it won't even turn on you won't be able to use a Live CD to salvage data.

I'd suggest taking the harddrive out and putting it in an enclosure connected to another computer to back up anything you need. Then get it back to the manufacturer and let them worry about it.

Alanstrainor

Just to add, even if your other computer is a laptop, you could still put the hard drive into it and boot into a linux live environment to get stuff off of it.

Top Dog

Thanks for all the suggestions. We've a Dell PC and a much older Compaq laptop here too - would one of those do what ye're suggesting?

Don't know anything about Linux though

Edit to add - would the harddrive be marked by a symbol most easily described as 3 cd's stacked on top of each other? Just looking at the underside of the laptop now and besides the battery, the 3 cd thing is the only other bit that looks as if it may be removable.

Alanstrainor

Top Dog wrote: »

Thanks for all the suggestions. We've a Dell PC and a much older Compaq laptop here too - would one of those do what ye're suggesting?

Don't know anything about Linux though

If the Dell has SATA connections then that should work, hopefully it'd just be as simple as plugging it in, and turning it on, and it should be visible. No need for linux, if this is the case, just boot into whatever version of windows is on it, and you should be good to go.

The whole linux live thing really is painless. But we'll get to that if it comes to it!

Top Dog

So am I to just take the covers off both (laptop & pc) pull out harddrive and try plug it straight into the pc?

Alanstrainor

Top Dog wrote: »

So am I to just take the covers off both (laptop & pc) pull out harddrive and try plug it straight into the pc?

Have a look at the connections on the PC first.



They should look something like that, look for the hard drive in the PC first and compare to that image. If they are, then you should be good to go.

Now, there should be no need to disconnect the hard drive in the desktop, there should be spare SATA leads in the case...well i'm hoping there is! If there isn't there will be two cables connected to the cd/dvd drive that you can use instead. Just connect the hard drive and place is somewhere flat inside the case.

Top Dog

Would I be correct in saying that the cable colour of the SATA doesn't really matter?

Have opened up the tower - no spare SATA connections, but the ones on the back of the DVD drive are easily accessible. There's a blue cable going to the floppy drive, and an orange one to the DVD drive. Floppy access is limited.

Top Dog

Need to know now if pulling the HD out of the laptop will void any warranty on it? If it will void it then herself won't let me proceed any further for fear of being left with an expensive paperweight.

Alanstrainor

Usually no. On this laptop there should be 2 compartments on the underside of the laptop, which are user accessible. One will be the RAM and the other will be the hard drive. It should be as simple as opening the compartment, removing 2 screws from the case of the hard drive and sliding it out. If there's warranty stickers preventing you from doing this, then maybe be wary, but I've yet to see this being an issue.

If you return the laptop to HP, I wouldn't expect to get any data back, which is where the problem lies.

Alanstrainor

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Usually no. On this laptop there should be 2 compartments on the underside of the laptop, which are user accessible. One will be the RAM and the other will be the hard drive. It should be as simple as opening the compartment, removing 2 screws from the case of the hard drive and sliding it out. If there's warranty stickers preventing you from doing this, then maybe be wary, but I've yet to see this being an issue.

If you return the laptop to HP, I wouldn't expect to get any data back, which is where the problem lies.

I have to recommend not doing this, I have seen HP reject an in warranty claim in my job because they could tell the HDD panel had been removed.

I do recommend putting ubuntu on a usb and using that to transfer it to another usb or blank DVD. If you need help with this, let me know. It's quite easy and very effective.

Beth

This is the Mrs....
Just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the help. Photos and work of an important event last week were on that laptop and not backed up yet, I thought i'd lost them forever!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Top Dog

Took it apart and it was exactly as you described above Alanstrainor. Once the battery was removed there was 1 screw holding the first cover over the RAM. Then a second screw holding the panel over the HDD. 4 screws holding that in place, unplug connector and slide out. HDD is about the same size as my phone which surprised me - 300GB in something so small (though I suppose you can get 32GB mini-SD cards these days so I probably shouldn't have been so surprised.

Connected it in place of the DVD drive on the PC and once the PC was started up I was able to copy all the files I wanted across with no problem at all. :cool:

Gave the laptop one last try at starting up when I was done but it was no go, so its all back in its original packaging along with the receipt, ready for return on Thursday. Still disgusted that its screwed after only 8ish weeks. :mad:

Alanstrainor

Beth wrote: »

This is the Mrs....
Just want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the help. Photos and work of an important event last week were on that laptop and not backed up yet, I thought i'd lost them forever!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Top Dog wrote: »

Took it apart and it was exactly as you described above Alanstrainor. Once the battery was removed there was 1 screw holding the first cover over the RAM. Then a second screw holding the panel over the HDD. 4 screws holding that in place, unplug connector and slide out. HDD is about the same size as my phone which surprised me - 300GB in something so small (though I suppose you can get 32GB mini-SD cards these days so I probably shouldn't have been so surprised.

Connected it in place of the DVD drive on the PC and once the PC was started up I was able to copy all the files I wanted across with no problem at all. :cool:

Gave the laptop one last try at starting up when I was done but it was no go, so its all back in its original packaging along with the receipt, ready for return on Thursday. Still disgusted that its screwed after only 8ish weeks. :mad:

No worries!

http://dropbox.com/

Get dropbox. You can save 2GBs of stuff online. And it's integrated into windows, so it just appears as a folder. When you update your docs it will automatically upload them:cool:

It will save a local copy of your stuff too. It's the best, and it'll save you some stress if something like this happens again!

Top Dog

Will get her to do that whenever she has a working laptop again

She usually backs up to an external drive but hadn't in the past few weeks as she was working on different things. Last thing she expected was for her new lappy to go kaput