my laptop won't start up

[Lesley Jones]

My HP Pavillion laptop (which I brought in June 06) is playing up this morning, I've had a similar problem before but it resolved itself! We rang the place we got it from that time and they couldn't say what the problem was and just to keep an eye on it. That was March.
When I turn it on it leads to a black page saying "Windows is sorry for the inconvenience but didn't start succesfully..." then offers you ways to start up Windows. There is Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, Last Known Good Configuration or Start Windows Normally. I have tried Start Windows Normally, Safe Mode and Last Known Good Configuration but all do the same thing.. The WindowsXP start page comes up and the blue bar loads up a bit then goes back to the black screen where it all started! Any option I choose leads back to this so I now have no idea what to do.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[Deluks]

Laptops can be tricky to troubleshoot, mainly because you can't just swap out parts, however I think this could be a problem with boot files. Have a read here, but beware, you might find it all a bit daunting.

 

[Lesley Jones]

Thanks for the reply, have read through the link . Seems we can still not get past this black page with the message mentioned before. Whatever option we choose the laptop just goes back to the same page with a bit of whirring.

I think we are going to go back to Comet with it this afternoon and see how far we get there.

 

[Spark123]

I had a similar problem with my desktop PC, gave up in the end and installed a fresh copy of windows. Do you have an XP disk or a recovery disk? Have you backed up all your important files? (although a little bit late now for windows you may still be able to back them up using Linux).

 

[diy_darren]

If your laptop has lost/corrupted some bootup files your HDD may well be on the way out. If you do manage to get it started up again I'd suggest you don't turn it off until you've copied off everything that is important (work/photos/music/etc).

I have a dell laptop with a similar issue so I installed a different operating system on it and have had no problems since.

Issues like this are quite difficult to diagnose and cure, so I'd be interested to hear what Comet recommend.

 

[Trazor]

You should really have returned it before June 07.
I hope they acknowledge that you queried the fault prior to that date....

 

[Lesley Jones]

Comet have sorted out the laptop and it is now back at its original settings, with functioning USB ports. We are currently making a set of recovery disks which we should have done when we originally purchased it apparently. Comet could not have been more helpful but I am afraid that I still do not really know what was wrong with it.

Next step is to reinstall everything, fortunately most stuff was backed up, mainly pictures and stuff. Unfortunately my daughters enormous collection of music is gone but that wont take her long to sort out and she is already planning what new music she can buy tomorrow.

Thanks everyone for your help.

 

[JohnD]

make her write 1000 times

I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data
I must back up my data

 

[diy_darren]

Next step is to reinstall everything

It sounds like all they did was reinstall the default package they bundle the machine with when it leaves the shop?

I am afraid that I still do not really know what was wrong with it.

I doubt they do either to be honest.

Like JohnD says, back everything up very regularly as there is no guarantee the old problem won't come back.

 

[ezekiel]

sounds like corrupt boot.ini file instal recovery console and run chkdsk / r