Help! I've got a 14 month old laptop which has simply refused to boot up today. It has started the book process but not got beyond the first screen (the one that on mine says "Press F2 for set up"). It seems to have got to various stages of checking the ram then just hung. Now it won't do anything - the fan is coming on and there is power (little green light) but nowt happens.

Any suggestions - other than kicking the bloody thing - please? And before you all ask - yes I've have got all me stuff backed up on a zip drive - I'm stupid but not that stupid!

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

Answers

try making a windows boot disk on another machine (Start - Settings - Cont Panel - Add/Remove Progs - Startup Disk).

Put this disk in and then turn on your laptop and see what happens. If you can get a DOS prompt I'd consider formatting the thing!

OR

Try hitting the F8 key as soon as you turn it on, hopefully this will bring a menu up that allows you in to Safe Mode.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

Thanks. Tried both of those - and still nowt - just a totally black screen. Can someone explain to me about Bios and stuff - is it likely to be a prob there or is it me hard drive. I can make it do things when it works but beggared if I know what to do when it doesn't!

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

may have a problem recognising the screen ? You need one of my techie boys to help you !!!

I'm surprised the boot disk doesn't help, if you have a dos disk in the a: drive it must try there first before it tries loading anything else.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

I had a laptop which was very temperamental on boot up. What I had to do was choose the option to boot manually step by step. This goes through the boot process and asks you to confirm each stage. This usually got me started OK.

If you're really desparate there are 0906 nos you can call for advice. They normally cost around £1 or £1.5 per min but on the 2 occasions I've used them I found the people very knowledgeable and had the problem resolved within 5 mins. I have no numbers to hand but the magazine Computer Active (the fortnightly mag) runs such a service.

yes I've have got all me stuff backed up on a zip drive - I'm stupid but not that stupid!

I don't know about stupid - if you've got your stuff backed up you're obviously smarter than 95% of PC users - including myself! :-)

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

Cheers Jonno. I spoke to a little Geordie man at the Computer Active helpline. He took me through various tests and then told me it was knacked and needed to go to the poorly computer hospital! The bloody thing is exactly two months out of warranty today. Typical!

Thanks for your help and suggestions men. Much appreciated.

-- Anonymous, June 28, 2001

Yup it sounds knackered to me.....might be something relatively easy and inexpensive like a dead memory chip but you'll need someone to look at it to say for definite.....

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001

A feeling of deja vu when I scrolled through this thread. My 5 year old Dell laptop at home showed the same symtoms about a month ago.

The diagnosis was hard-disk failure, later confirmed. Replacement (with greater memory) and re-programming cost me £140.

-- Anonymous, June 29, 2001