Compaq Laptop won't boot to CD.

[rspartacus]

My Compaq Laptop with a one bay floppydrive/cdrom, one day, will not
boot up to windows 2000 Pro. It will not boot up to the install CD when
trying to reinstall window 2000. The laptop was originally Windows 95,
then later upgraded to 98 and now 2000. Even after I set the BOIS to
allow the CD-ROM to be the first to boot it will not see any bootable
CD. I don't have the restore CD.

The reason for reinstalling is because the operating system won't boot
up. It hangs. It will boot up to the boot diskettes. After running the
win2000 boot diskettes I choose "R' for repair but I get, "cannot find
hard drive." I'm trying to get to a command prompt so I can copy the
disks to the hard drive but not sure how to get into the command
prompt. What are some other ideas I can try? Thanks.

 

[Dave Patrick]

(Note: If your drive controller is not natively supported then you'll want
to boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom (or setup disks). Then *F6* very
early and very important (at setup is inspecting your system) in the setup
to prevent drive controller detection, and select S to specify additional
drivers. Then later you'll be prompted to insert the manufacturer supplied
Windows 2000 driver for your drive controller in drive "A")

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

| My Compaq Laptop with a one bay floppydrive/cdrom, one day, will not
| boot up to windows 2000 Pro. It will not boot up to the install CD when
| trying to reinstall window 2000. The laptop was originally Windows 95,
| then later upgraded to 98 and now 2000. Even after I set the BOIS to
| allow the CD-ROM to be the first to boot it will not see any bootable
| CD. I don't have the restore CD.
|
| The reason for reinstalling is because the operating system won't boot
| up. It hangs. It will boot up to the boot diskettes. After running the
| win2000 boot diskettes I choose "R' for repair but I get, "cannot find
| hard drive." I'm trying to get to a command prompt so I can copy the
| disks to the hard drive but not sure how to get into the command
| prompt. What are some other ideas I can try? Thanks.
|

 

[philo]

My Compaq Laptop with a one bay floppydrive/cdrom, one day, will not
boot up to windows 2000 Pro. It will not boot up to the install CD when
trying to reinstall window 2000. The laptop was originally Windows 95,
then later upgraded to 98 and now 2000. Even after I set the BOIS to
allow the CD-ROM to be the first to boot it will not see any bootable
CD. I don't have the restore CD.

<snip>

you need to go into the bios and see if you can re-detect the harddrive and
cdrom...

it appears that they both have not been detected.

If one device is detected only...
it's indicative of the other having failed...

otoh: if neither is detected...it may be a controller problem


the only good news is that if the controller failed...
your data on the HD is still there!

 

[Gary Chanson]

Additionally, it may be that you simply don't have a bootable CD in the
drive. The Windows 2000 Setup disk should be bootable but your disk might
be damaged.

You should be able to boot into DOS from either a floppy or CD.

 

[- Bobb -]

Additionally, it may be that you simply don't have a bootable CD in
the
drive. The Windows 2000 Setup disk should be bootable but your disk
might
be damaged.

You should be able to boot into DOS from either a floppy or CD.

re - your signature ... in my town they want to "renovate" all 5
schools - cost = 285 million friggin dollars. Movin on out.

 

[paulmd]

My Compaq Laptop with a one bay floppydrive/cdrom, one day, will not
boot up to windows 2000 Pro. It will not boot up to the install CD when
trying to reinstall window 2000. The laptop was originally Windows 95,
then later upgraded to 98 and now 2000. Even after I set the BOIS to
allow the CD-ROM to be the first to boot it will not see any bootable
CD. I don't have the restore CD.

The reason for reinstalling is because the operating system won't boot
up. It hangs. It will boot up to the boot diskettes. After running the
win2000 boot diskettes I choose "R' for repair but I get, "cannot find
hard drive." I'm trying to get to a command prompt so I can copy the
disks to the hard drive but not sure how to get into the command
prompt. What are some other ideas I can try? Thanks.

Your hard drive is dead. Although you can try reseating it. My money's
on dead. Your CDROM probably died some time ago, or your CD media is
damaged/dirty. You can try cleaning the lens of the CD drive with
alcohol and a cotton swab. It's old enough, the leans may just be
dirty.

Your laptop is 8-11 years old. Drives fail.

 

[paulmd]

Your hard drive is dead. Although you can try reseating it. My money's
on dead. Your CDROM probably died some time ago, or your CD media is
damaged/dirty. You can try cleaning the lens of the CD drive with
alcohol and a cotton swab. It's old enough, the leans may just be
dirty.

Your laptop is 8-11 years old. Drives fail.

Forgot to mention, the OTHER thing that dies on these is CMOS
batteries, and it forgets settings, like time, and boot order, and all
kinds of fun stuff, once disconnected from main power.

 

[Gary Chanson]

re - your signature ... in my town they want to "renovate" all 5
schools - cost = 285 million friggin dollars. Movin on out.

Well, they're just looking out for the welfare of ...

...

the contractors.

 

[rspartacus]

Your hard drive is dead. Although you can try reseating it. My money's
on dead. Your CDROM probably died some time ago, or your CD media is
damaged/dirty. You can try cleaning the lens of the CD drive with
alcohol and a cotton swab. It's old enough, the leans may just be
dirty.

Your laptop is 8-11 years old. Drives fail.

The hard drive is old and failing but I would want to try revive it. It
has worked for many years until it was upgraded to windows 2000 Pro
then only a few days later it will boot up halfway into windows and
then hangs.

I have a startup disk for windows 98 and boot disk for windows 2000 and
both have failed to open into the command prompt. I've have had
windows 2000 hang like this before on a brand new hard drive and it
turns out the solution is to load the startup disk and run chkdsk. How
do I run chkdsk?

Thanks

 

[John John]

Well, they're just looking out for the welfare of ...

...

the contractors.

Whose welfare are private schools looking out for?

John

 

[- Bobb -]

retitled subject - it won't boot anything - right ?

The hard drive is old and failing but I would want to try revive it.
It
has worked for many years until it was upgraded to windows 2000 Pro
then only a few days later it will boot up halfway into windows and
then hangs.

1. Any data on there you care about ? If so get an adapter and move the
drive to desktop PC.
2. Win 95 !! - what model laptop ? what specs ?
3. Is this a replacement disk drive ? My reason for asking is BIOS may
not recognize a drive over 2gb and if you just popped in a 10gb drive,
the PC may not see it.
4. did you format hdd ? or upgrade OS ?
5. So was Win2000 fully installed successfully?
a. Using MSFT CD or Compaq ?
b. You found all the drivers ?
c. and it was working for a few days ?
6. if you boot a win98 floppy disk, can you then "get to C" ?
A:\ " dir c: "
or
A:\ " CD C: "

 

[Bob I]

Failing harddrives don't "revive". If you have physical failure, and you
are attempting to install to it, you are wasting your time. They don't
heal.

 

[Ben Myers]

Yes. The best one can hope for with a failing/failed hard drive is that it
will spin up and run long enough so that important DATA files can be copied from
it onto a replacement hard drive which has been set up with the right operating
system. As a rule, one forget any possibility of getting copies of installed
software from a failing hard drive, because the software installation puts lots
and lots of entries into the Windows registry and splatters program files and
DLLs all over the hard drive... Ben Myers

 

[paulmd]

The hard drive is old and failing but I would want to try revive it. It
has worked for many years until it was upgraded to windows 2000 Pro
then only a few days later it will boot up halfway into windows and
then hangs.

Looks dead, to me.

Although..... Lots and lots of win95 machines shipped with just 16MB
RAM. This will work (marginally) for win98. It will not work for win2k.
64MB is marginal for win2k. IT could be you're fighting a separate
issue.

Try nuking the drive and reloading win98.

This is a program that will wipe your hard drive, even if it's badly
damaged. But if this doesn't detect your hard drive at all.... you're
looking at replacing the drive. Period. You will not be able to a use a
new drive, because new drives are too large. The replacement should be
under 8gb.

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

 

[Ian Singer]

This is a program that will wipe your hard drive, even if it's badly
damaged. But if this doesn't detect your hard drive at all.... you're
looking at replacing the drive. Period. You will not be able to a use a
new drive, because new drives are too large. The replacement should be
under 8gb.

New drives work in old systems, just that they won't see it all. My dos
desktop has 20 gig drive in it but DOS is only seeing 2 gig partitions
and will not see anything out past about 7 gig.

Ian Singer

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[Barry Watzman]

That is not always true. Sometimes, the system just won't boot at all,
period, if the drive is too big. It all depends on how the bios is written.

 

[Gary Chanson]

Whose welfare are private schools looking out for?

Today, probably no one.

 

[Nicholas D Richards]

Today, probably no one.

Just out of interest are we talking about British Public Schools, or
American Public Schools. They are very different animals.

 

[Gary Chanson]

Just out of interest are we talking about British Public Schools, or
American Public Schools. They are very different animals.

American.