Laptop won't boot.

[gibbylinks]

I have a Tiny N18 laptop that won't boot from the hard drive. The bios
messages appear, drive light flickers then black screen and NO activity. The
bios recognizes the drive OK.

I can boot from CD and I've run chkdsk on the drive and it appears to be OK,
also run fixboot and fixmbr with no difference. I then did repair using XP CD
reinstalling windows with no joy.

Booted using Ultimate Boot CD for Windows and everything works fine. Checked
drive and no viruses. It just refuses to boot. Anyone any ideas ?

Cheers

 

[Malke]

I have a Tiny N18 laptop that won't boot from the hard drive. The bios
messages appear, drive light flickers then black screen and NO activity.
The bios recognizes the drive OK.

I can boot from CD and I've run chkdsk on the drive and it appears to be
OK, also run fixboot and fixmbr with no difference. I then did repair
using XP CD reinstalling windows with no joy.

Booted using Ultimate Boot CD for Windows and everything works fine.
Checked drive and no viruses. It just refuses to boot. Anyone any ideas ?

Pull the drive and put it in an external enclosure. Attach it to a working
XP computer. If the drive is seen, this would be a good time to get your
data off just in case you hadn't already done a backup. If the drive is
seen and apparently functions well, the problem will be on the laptop's
motherboard. Since this is a Tiny and they are out of business, if the
machine would be under warranty do some research on Google and see who has
picked up Tiny's warranty work. I vaguely remember reading that some
company had but don't remember who.

If the drive isn't seen in the enclosure while attached to the working XP
box, then it's dead. Try another drive in the Tiny. My guess is that the
Tiny's power supply and/or motherboard is faulty but that's just a guess
based on many posts about how cr*ppy Tiny computers are.

Malke

 

[gibbylinks]

Ok took drive out and replaced it with a (sorry guys) Linux drive I have.
Machine booted and appears to be working OK. Put hard drive in USB caddy as
suggested. I can see all the files and virus scan hasn't picked anything up.

 

[gibbylinks]

Did Error-checking on drive while in the USN caddy and it now works. Problem
I have though is I used my XP CD to repair the installation and now the
product key that's on the base of the laptop isn't accepted !!

I think I have the original CD will it tkae the product key if I repair
again with that one ?

Cheers

 

[Malke]

Did Error-checking on drive while in the USN caddy and it now works.
Problem I have though is I used my XP CD to repair the installation and
now the product key that's on the base of the laptop isn't accepted !!

I think I have the original CD will it tkae the product key if I repair
again with that one ?

You can but try. Yes, you should use your original CD that came with the
laptop because it will be OEM and the disk you used probably was retail
(just guessing). I don't know if you can do a repair install of the repair
install, but if it doesn't work you can do a clean install with the right
CD this time.

Malke

 

[gibbylinks]

Arrrrrghhh, can't get it to boot from original CD !!! It was a corporate
edition disk somebody has burnt.

 

[Malke]

Arrrrrghhh, can't get it to boot from original CD !!! It was a corporate
edition disk somebody has burnt.

I don't see how a laptop, even a Tiny, would have come with a "corporate
edition disk" that was burnt. It sounds very much to me like your so-called
original XP install was not what came with the Tiny laptop at all. However,
it really doesn't matter at this point. Your options:

1. Find out what company has taken over the Tiny warranty work. Contact them
and see if their involvement extends to providing restore disks for that
model laptop.

2. If the answer to #1 is no, you might see if this company has restore
disks for your computer:

http://www.restoredisks.com

3. If the above doesn't help you, then if you want to run XP on that machine
you'll need to bite the bullet and buy a retail copy. Naturally it will
come with its own Product Key which is what you'll use to install the OS.
Hopefully you have drivers for the Tiny.

Malke

 

[Dragomir Kollaric]

OT - S T A R T

Ok took drive out and replaced it with a (sorry guys) Linux drive I have.

No need to apologize for using Linux, this is a choice you
have. Do you apologize to someone, because you prefer a
certain food over another?

What are your needs for this PC? Must WinXP be installed?
What Software do you want to use on it? Does Gnu/Linux offer
you alternatives?

Anyway I have two very old *1994* and *1996* Laptops and
both got a new life when I installed DSL and "Slack" on
them... If the Hardware is fine why fiddling with one OS when
another OS might be better?

OT -- E N D



Dragomir Kollaric