Defrag at startup?

[Guest]

Hello All! I recently had to delete the partition, format the 30 Gig HD, and
reinstall Win XP Home on my Presario 2500 Notebook. The problem I have now,
is that when it boots up, it goes directly to a black screen. Then a white
progress bar is displayed at the bottom. After about 40 minutes it continues
normally, and the PC works fine. I don't see any error messages or warnings
during this process.

I have seen this screen before, following a bad shutdown, but I am not sure
what it is, or how to stop it appearing everytime I start or re-boot the PC.
Does anyone have any ideas? I have re-installed all the drivers for the PC
using the supplied disk.

Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

Neil

 

[Nite]

Sounds like the hard drive is bad or going bad. If you reformatted the hard
drive and installed a fresh install of Windows, and you are getting that
problem, that would be my first guess is that the hard drive is bad. I
would goto HP's web site and look up your specific computer model.
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/pfinder?query=Presario+2500+&dest_page=product&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en
Find out what brand name hard drive is installed, and see if you can find a
hard drive diagnostic tool from that manufacturer. You can usually download
them for free from the manufacturer's web site. If your laptop is still
under warrantee, they will probably want you to run a diagnostic tool before
they give you a RMA number anyway.

Also check to see if you have the latest bios update. You can find that on
the same URL.

--

Lyle Bayless, A+
(e-mail address removed)
(e-mail address removed)
ICQ 294471048
AIM NiteTheDJ
Y! NiteWatchman42
MSN (e-mail address removed)

"Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati"
(When all else fails, play dead.)

 

[Guest]

Hi Lyle,

Thanks for your help. I actually did contact HP today. They suggested I run
a defrag (which I didn't really think I needed to do, seeing as I had only
just re-installed XP) and disk cleanup. They then suggested I download the
winflash utility for my BIOS. I flashed the BIOS, and everything seems to be
working fine now. Bootup reduced from 40 mins to less than one minute. No
problems (so far!!) with operation.

I had also run a hard drive self test via the bios setup (Phoenix), and I
got an error message (#1 - 07 Fail ). After I flashed the BIOS, I ran the HD
self test again and got the same result. So, as you suggest I will check out
the HDD manufacturer and run a diagnostic tool as you suggest.

Many thanks for your reply. You are spot on with the diagnosis and solution!!

Cheers

Neil