Dropped my laptop

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jay Stevens
  • Start date Start date
J

Jay Stevens

This may be the wrong group for this sort of a problem but I've often gotten
good advice from here before.

I have a three year old Asus with XP Home.
Last night I dropped it.
Now when I turn it on it only goes to the screen where I can select:
Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt
Last known good configuration.
Start Windows Normally.

It doesn't matter which one I select. I eventually, after a long wait, get a
long bar on the bottom going from left to right very slowly.
Then I get the Windows XP screen and then all it does is reboot it self and
I end up with the same selection screen. I've tried all the selections and
it always goes that same circle. Eventually always rebooting it self after a
few seconds on the Windows XP screen, the one that has the blue bar moving.
Before this I never had any problems.

Any Suggestions?

Thanks

Jay
 
Your laptop has suffered some hardware problem. Could be
the hard disk, the motherboard or some connection. Have it
serviced.
 
Jay said:
This may be the wrong group for this sort of a problem but I've often gotten
good advice from here before.

I have a three year old Asus with XP Home.
Last night I dropped it.
Now when I turn it on it only goes to the screen where I can select:
Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt
Last known good configuration.
Start Windows Normally.

It doesn't matter which one I select. I eventually, after a long wait, get a
long bar on the bottom going from left to right very slowly.
Then I get the Windows XP screen and then all it does is reboot it self and
I end up with the same selection screen. I've tried all the selections and
it always goes that same circle. Eventually always rebooting it self after a
few seconds on the Windows XP screen, the one that has the blue bar moving.
Before this I never had any problems.

Any Suggestions?

Thanks

Jay
Click to expand...

Dropping a laptop is very unhealthy for it. For starters,
if feasible and without violating any warranties, open it
up and check the seating for all of the cables, connectors,
cards, etc. If the laptop still continues to balk, then it's
time to take it for service.
 
Put it on a firm surface and give it three good slaps with the palm of your
hand. Then pick it up and give it a series of vigorous side to side and back
to front shakes - five should do. Lastly, jerk it up and down a few times
and blow gently on it while humming "hmmmmmm hmmmmm"....

Then try and boot the sucker. Should work... otherwise get it serviced.
 
Yes. 2 things you can do.

1) insert your original XP cd boot with it and do a repair installation

2) Find a knoppix linux bootable cd (or something similar that is bootable)
and see if your computer boots into linux, that will show that your hardware
is working ok
and only the hard disk may have some problems or in the worse scenario it
may have bad sectors....
 
John Jay Smith said:
Yes. 2 things you can do.

1) insert your original XP cd boot with it and do a repair installation
Click to expand...

Interesting. Please explain how dropping a laptop could affect
the currently installed software.
 
the head of a hard disk is only a fraction of a millimeter above the actual
disk.
If it gets shocked by a blow it often touches the surface and creates data
loss.

This can be repaired by a scan disk (check disk) if its not too bad,
sometimes bad sectors are found and repaired or marked so that the OS wont
use them in the future.
 
if the head just touched the surface very slightly only data may be
corrupted and a repair installation may indeed fix his boot problem.

He should try to enter the recovery console first and choose type help
and find the check disk command and run a checkdisk on his system
He might even avoid the repair installation (although I doubt it).
 
Yes. 2 things you can do.

1) insert your original XP cd boot with it and do a repair installation

2) Find a knoppix linux bootable cd ....
Click to expand...

Hehehehe, doncha just luv these Linux advocates - they live in this
wonderful fantasy land that no matter what, Linux'll fixit. PML .....
:) :) :)
 
I did not say that it would fix it. However it would confirm that all the
hardware (excluding the hard disk) is operating succesfully.

I suport windows more than linux, but its harder to tell him to locate a
bootable PE version of windows than a bootable version of linux like knoppix
that is free. If he buys magazines he probably already has a cd of some live
version of linux, since they give them away.
 
John said:
the head of a hard disk is only a fraction of a millimeter above the actual
disk.
If it gets shocked by a blow it often touches the surface and creates data
loss.

This can be repaired by a scan disk (check disk) if its not too bad,
sometimes bad sectors are found and repaired or marked so that the OS wont
use them in the future.
Click to expand...

Theoretically, it sounds good. But if the HD platters were
still spinning at the time when the laptop was dropped, the
laminar flow over the platters would still be sufficient to
keep the head from physically contacting the platter itself.
If the HD platters were not spinning and the heads were parked,
then any impact would affect just the parked position (since
there is no longer any laminar flow). The ferrite used in heads
are pretty tough but, if damaged, becomes friable. A damaged
head will do poorly in read and write tests.
 
Then what you are saying is that hard disks are indestructible! LOL

Try giving some kicks on your hard drive to verify that. :-)
 
John said:
Then what you are saying is that hard disks are indestructible! LOL

Try giving some kicks on your hard drive to verify that. :-)
Click to expand...

You would hurt your foot more than the hard drive. Check the
G-force rating on hard drives. They are up in the 150g range
or higher. In a time long past, I would agree but today's HD
are simple in comparison to those of multi-heads per stack and
multi-plattered and slow platter speeds. Ever see the insides
of an airplane's blackbox? Today, it's a hard drive.

In this particular situation of dropping a laptop, from maybe
tabletop height to a floor, the shock isn't really that severe.
There would be more damage to the laptop itself, such as cracked
cases, broken keys, broken screen hinges, internal breakage, etc.
The fact that this particular laptop powered up at all indicates
shock damage at less durable points, viz., connectors, plugs,
sockets, etc.
 
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