Is it stuffed

[astroron]

I closed my Laptop down and went out for about 2 hours,
When I tried to start it up again I get this message,

A disk error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart,

I do this and all it does is to bring me back to this message:mad2:

Is the computer Stuffed:question::question::questio n:
Any help appreciated:)
Cheers

[AdrianF]

Have you tried to start the pc in safe mode?

Adrian

[astroron]

Adrian, I cannot get passed that message?

[duncan]

Hi Ron,
Whilst i have not had exactly the same problem, i have had times when the damn thing just would not start at all.
In the end i just removed the battery for about a minute, put it back in and away she went.
Duncan

[Tandum]

Most likely, the hard drive has file corruption. You need to boot from a windows cd, get to a command prompt and try doing a diskscan.

[astroron]

Thanks Robin.
cheers

[astroron]

I tried to reboot of the disk and no go:help:
So it looks like it is Stuffed:sadeyes:

[BlackWidow]

Hi Ron I am a Computer Tech by trade so I will try and do my best to help you. Are you able to give me the Make and Model of your Laptop please. It does sound like you have had a hard drive fail on you. However it could also be the CD Drive in which case your data will be safe.. Anyway give me some details and I will see if I can assist.. I get so much assistance and advice on this site it good to try and help back.


Seeing Stars
Mardy

[Cosmic]

Gday Ron

Dose the motherboard screen pop up eg Asus,Toshiba ...so on?

When the computer turns on repeatedly hit F5 or F8.....that will depend on which windows op your running... You want to get into safe mode if you can!! Otherwise it gets a bit tricky from here on in.

Also what Mardy has said + extra..check USB flash drives and external HDs and all other connections to the computer (disconnect every thing). Beacuse when the pc loads it check most/all USB drives. A dodgy USB thumb drive will give this error.

[supernova1965]

you could also try to boot from a live Linux cd too see if you can access the HDD from within the Linux operating system

[astroron]

Thanks guys,I cannot get into safe mode
I cannot get past
A disk error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart,
If I put in the XP disk it takes me all the way through the install system then asks me if I want to repair or install another widows,if I install another windows I will loose all my stuff and be back to square one :shrug:
When I do the repair it tells me it has tried and failed:(
The computer is a compaq 6220
cheers

[supernova1965]

So you can boot from a CD if you download a Damn Small Linux ISO image from another computer and burn to a CD using nero iso burning you can boot from it and possibly rescue data from the HDD to an external HDD of a USB memory stick

[supernova1965]

Hi Ron

This is very advanced but you may be able to follow it I reckon you are one smart cookie so have a look at this tutorial it may help if the HDD is not dead and the boot record has been corrupted. I would still try the live CD to recover any files if possible.


http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058

[BlackWidow]

If Ron has gone through the XP repair option it's most likley that the data is now gone. XP repair does not reallwork to well. The problem is not the CD Drive as Ron has been able to run XP,. Most HP and Compaq computers have a recover system and it is activated by prexxing ALT F11 or ALT F12 at startup. You will loose all the data if you go ahead. However if you allow the option to start and it goes into the menu it will confirm a hard drive failure or not. If the unit does not go into the menu, you are in trouble. If it does the date may be able to be saved.


Seeing Stars
Mardy

[Tandum]

There is a screen before where it asks you to repair or reinstall. Where it stops at that first screen is where you can get a command prompt going. That's where you need to be to do a scandisk. I think the command is scandisk c: /p but if you do a scandisk /? it will print the available switches for it. You want to force it to do a full scan and see what happens. If it corrects errors you will probably have to do another repair to get windows going seeing the last repair failed.

[astroron]

Thanks guys ,I cannot get to any of those steps you both suggested:shrug:
So have given up for the moment till I can get someone who knows what they are doing:rolleyes:
Cheers:thumbsup:

[astroron]

Thanks Warren:thanx: but as far as Computers are concerned I am not very smart at all:rolleyes:
Cheers :thumbsup:

[RobF]

I'm feeling for your Ron.
I left my astro laptop plugged in recharging then went out - on the day we had the monster thunderstorm recently!!! :eyepop:

Getting terrible BSODs and reboots now. Sigh. :sadeyes:
Only consolation is you can't see the sky at the moment anyway.

[astroron]

Thanks Rob, long time no hear;)
I hope you get yours sorted out soon
All the best for the Christmas
Cheers

[RobF]

Thanks Ron
All the best to yourself too - hope you have a great Chrissy.

Rob

[asimov]

Had a similar problem only last night on a 5 year old Toshiba A100 So I had to do a clean install (XP) using the recovery disk.

First thing you need to do is get into the BIOS & change your boot device order, so that it boots from your DVD player.

[Cosmic]

Ron if you end up reinstalling windows, I have a program to recover lost data....even if the hard drive is formatted or not. Let us know the final outcome and will try get all your docs back if there real important.

Dan

[OzRob]

Maybe remove the hard drive from the computer and see what happens when you turn the computer on.

[higginsdj]

If you are still getting this after using a boot CD then either your CD drive is not working or the BIOS has the HD booting ahead of the CD (which is bad) OR you are not using a bootable CD (most likely problem).

In any case your HD is likely to be cactus and you can buy a new laptop HD (2.5") and install it (usually 1 screw on the underside to remove the HD cover and then just pull the 2.5" drive out then just reverse the process to install the new one). Take the old drive in to someone who can attempt a recovery. Recovery is hit and miss depending on how bad the HD is. I take it you didn't keep a backup of your drive that you could clone from?

Cheers

[mill]

Ron just download Hiren's boot cd and boot from that.
It has loads of recovery programs and this way you can save most of your data to an external usb harddrive.
Go here for the download http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download.html
And scroll down to the bottom and click on the download link "hirens.bootcd.12.zip"
Burn this onto a cd and start up from it.you can even start up into windows xp and linux.

[RobF]

How did you go Ron?

[astroron]

Hi Rob,I have not attempted to do anything as I cannot get past the original screen I started this thread with.:sadeyes:
so have basicly given up for the time being:shrug:

[RobF]

Does sound "hard drive'ish" from what you've described. Might be worth investing in an external drive for backup images of your PCs.

If you can burn a CD (or USB stick) on the other computer (I think you have one in the office?) that sounds like the only way you will be able to progress any further. You might get far enough to be able to copy data off, then reformat/install windows etc if worse case as per all the suggestions above.

Did you get a Windows CD with the computer?