Magic partition fails, then cannot install Vista, finally cannot bootthe laptop even using Dos boota

[cuocvuitancung]

Hi all,

I am getting in a trouble. This morning I tried to install Vista in my
laptop (which already had XP) to make a dual boot mode. First I ran
Partition Magic to make a space to install Vista.But while it was
partitioning my hard driver the battery ran out and the partition was
interrupted. (I had not back-up the laptop).

However when I looked at the driver I saw there was a space the
Patiotion Magic created in my harddrive. So I decided to install Vista
into this space although I knew Partition Magic had not succeeded its
task. (stupid am I).
Finally Vista failed to finish the installation. It was suspended when
it copied the files to the drive.
And now I cannot boot the laptop. I tried to use other bootable CDs
(XP, DOS), USBs, anything I have to try to boot the laptop and format
the drive. But nothing worked. Just a black screen appears with the
flicking cursor.

Would any one tell me what I should do? Frankly I do not want to bring
the laptop to some computer repair service?

Thanks a lot.

 

[Chuck]

You evidently forgot one of the most important "Gotchas" with a laptop, and
are now going to pay the price.
Can you get into BIOS, and change the boot order to boot from the CD/DVD
drive first?
I assume you have at least the OEM recovery CD/DVD and the needed drivers
available.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Pull the battery and the power and wait 10 minutes to reset the system. Now
boot. Do you get past the POST? If not, then your problem lies with the
machine. If it fails when trying to load a disk, then you need to get into
the BIOS and remove all devices from the boot order except the optical drive
you are going to use for the recovery media.

Never, ever, do that kind of work on battery power.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[olfart]

Hi,

Pull the battery and the power and wait 10 minutes to reset the system.
Now boot. Do you get past the POST? If not, then your problem lies with
the machine. If it fails when trying to load a disk, then you need to get
into the BIOS and remove all devices from the boot order except the
optical drive you are going to use for the recovery media.

Never, ever, do that kind of work on battery power.

--

also...
Partition Manager can cause problems with Vista. Get easeus Partiton
Manager...it's free

 

[cuocvuitancung]

Thanks everybody for the help. I tried to take the battery out then
put it back to restart but it did not work.

Since my laptop cannot start up, I am wondering if I can take the hard
disk drive of the laptop out and connect it to my desktop as a slaver.
Then I use the partition program and format program available in my
desktop to re-format the latop's hard disk drive.

Do you think this approach might work?

Thanks

 

[Rick Rogers]

That depends. Does it get past the initial POST and fail when it loads the
hard drive? Or does the failure occur before then? If the system does not
get past the initial POST, then doing anything with the hard drive will be
pointless as it's not getting that far.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

Thanks everybody for the help. I tried to take the battery out then
put it back to restart but it did not work.

Since my laptop cannot start up, I am wondering if I can take the hard
disk drive of the laptop out and connect it to my desktop as a slaver.
Then I use the partition program and format program available in my
desktop to re-format the latop's hard disk drive.

Do you think this approach might work?

Thanks

 

[John Doe]

Never, ever, do that kind of work on battery power.

More important is to always have a copy of important files from your
hard drive to removable media.