Larry said:
My HP ZD8000 Laptop will not boot past the startup screen. What are
the
chances that it is not a total hard drive failure and I will be able
to
recover my data. It was acting very strange and taking forever to boot
prior
to this. Now it does not boot at all. The hard drive light comes on
and stays
on for a minute or so, then goes out and doesn't flicker again until I
Control/Alt/Delete. Which starts the process all over again. Is it
Possible
there are corrupt files on the drive that won't allow Windows to load,
and if
so how do I go about resolving the problem. I also don't have a boot
disk for
windows. Any help given will be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks
Larry, there's not enough information.
When you say that "it does not boot at all," what exactly do you mean?
Other than the hard drive light coming on, is there anything else
happening? Is the screen black? I've seen this behavior on two laptops,
and the screens were shot! One way to determine this is to hook up an
external monitor.
It could be hardware at fault (bad screen as mentioned above, bad RAM,
bad power supply, bad hard drive). It could be malware. It could be a
bad update (and that would be the cause of the corrupt files you asked
about). When did this problem first occur and what happened in the hours
preceding it?
Am I correct in assuming your laptop came only with a restore partition?
If so, your options are limited unfortunately.
You can make your own bootable rescue disk. Examples are Bart PE,
UBCD4Win, and Knoppix. The first two require building, and since you
don't have an XP installation disk, they won't help you unless you know
someone who already has one of these rescue disks. Knoppix (a live Linux
CD) is probably your best bet if you don't feel like physically removing
your hard drive (although if you have the correct enclosure, that can
definitely be done). Here's the link:
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
Click on one of the mirror links (like Kernel.Org). When you see the
index, scroll to:
KNOPPIX_V6.0.1CD-2009-02-08-EN.iso
(Of course you need someone else's PC to do all this!)
Download that and create a CD from it. A very easy free program to do
this is ImgBurn:
http://www.imgburn.com/
Once you have your bootable CD, you can change your laptop's settings to
boot off the CD-ROM drive instead of off the hard drive.
Connect your laptop to an external USB hard drive and you can now
salvage all your data. Make sure you also copy all your e-mail folders
and IE Favorites.
In case you need Support and Troubleshooting info for your notebook, see
this page:
http://h20180.www2.hp.com/apps/Look...63-1&h_pagetype=s-001&h_query=ZD8000+notebook
(watch the wrap for the long Web links)
If your PC is an HP Pavilion zd8000 CTO Notebook, this would be your
page:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?product=1137817&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&lang=en&cc=us
To access the BIOS (which would enable you to choose to boot off the
CD-ROM drive):
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...&lc=en&dlc=en&product=1137817#c00034791_enter
You can also download your manual:
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00272240.pdf
Or you can try the troubleshooting steps. For a blank screen, I found
this page, for instance:
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...c=en&cc=us&product=1137817&rule=18631&lang=en
If you still suspect a harware problem (other than bad screen), there
should be some hardware diagnostics on the Knoppix CD. Perhaps HP has
its own diagnostics; check your manual. For more info on hardware
troubleshooting:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Hardware_Tshoot
If you suspect malware:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Viruses_Malware
If you had access to someone else's XP installation CD (doesn't matter
what kind), that means you could run the Recovery Console and you could
also perform a manual System Restore:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545
If you can't get an XP installation CD, Microsoft provides this method
(you will need a floppy):
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q310994
Or bypass the above and make your own bootable CD that has the Recovery
Console on it:
http://tips.vlaurie.com/2006/05/23/recovery-console-for-those-without-an-xp-disk/
If your hardware is healthy and if your data is salvaged and if either
malware or a bad install did such extensive irreparable damage, perform
HP's recovery routine: It would be either via a hidden recovery
partition or you may need to contact HP to obtain the correct CD from
them.
According to the manual for the HP Pavilion zd8000 CTO Notebook, you may
press F10 immediately after you power on the PC to enter HP's Setup
Utility (i.e, the BIOS as I mentioned above).
If you wind up needing a disk and HP won't ship it to you, you can try
this place:
http://www.restoredisks.com/