[miss-popcorn]

In June last year my sister purchased a fujitsu seimens PC.
until 2 weeks ago she had had no problems with the machine whatsoever, then it began to run very slowly...after boot up she would get a warning to back up all files as a hard drive faliure was possible.
she reported this fault to fujitsu...and as expected an engineer came out and put in a new hard drive. This is where the problems really start.
I re installed her windows xp pro & all its drivers...and the machine was working as new. As it was quite late, she turned it off and retired for the night. The next morning, she turned it on and....it wouldn't boot up.
Straight away she phoned the help line...and was told that they could do nothing for her...it was a software problem.
I formatted the hd and once again re installed windows...this time I didn't put any other programs on...she had internet explorer...working fine, outlook express....working fine & microsoft word...working fine.
I shut the computer down on several occasions, and each time it booted up fine. She went to bed...got up the next day,,,,and the pc wouldn't boot up.
This time she called in a friends husband ...a computer engineer himself. he re installed windows...and all the bare bones programms as i had done...all worked fine...until the next day, when the pc once again refused to boot up.
can anyone throw any light on this....no one will help her. she's a complete novice pc wise, and has taken this pretty badly.
Please help

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describe what you mean by wouldn't boot up..

wouldnt do ANYTHING? as in no bios no post no nothing?
or wouldn't get into windows?
where would the process stop?
could you hear the fans and drives spinning up?
any error messages or beeps?

[dsenette]

describe what you mean by wouldn't boot up..

wouldnt do ANYTHING? as in no bios no post no nothing?
or wouldn't get into windows?
where would the process stop?
could you hear the fans and drives spinning up?
any error messages or beeps?

[miss-popcorn]

the black screen that gives you start up options..safe mode etc...unable to load windows
the only way to get the thing to work is a full clean install of windows....then, once its turned off for more than an hour...everything is gone again
best
Linda

[SuperSam]

I'd probably try chkdsk...

Turn off the computer, and get the windows XP Pro CD ready. Turn on the computer, and put in the XP CD, boot from the CD. After this all finishes reading the cd, you should have a menu (sorry I haven't got a chance to actually do this, I'm remembering from when I have done this before). The menu should ask you to install a new version of xp, recover, etc. Choose Recovery console. When this loads you should be in an MS-DOS like command prompt, type "chkdsk" and run through it, personally this sounds like a hard drive problem.

[miss-popcorn]

We tried this...a help desk person from fujitsu talked her through the "chkdsk" route. He then talked her through the full windows re install. of course the computer was then up and running. the next day when it was switched on and the black screen was there once again...she phoned the help desk again, only to be told that it was obviously a software problem...and they were unable to help her.
she's 60 years old and this is her first computer...she is so frustrated...it cost her £600 and it dosent even have a cd writer on it, she paid extra for 3 years warranty...which seems to be not worth the paper it's written on
best
Linda

[dsenette]

it's not a software problem...fujitsu are idiots.....so none of the options on the "black screen with options" work? not even safe mode with command line?

[miss-popcorn]

No...nothing
Its almost like it loses it's memory after its been turned off....is this possible?

[dsenette]

it's as if it's loosing it's mind is more like it.....i have never seen an issue like this....there is a battery on the motherboard that controls the saving of bios changes...and when that goes dead you tend to end up with boot issues...but not like this...it generally causes issues because the system clock get's reset...but if you reset the time then you are back in business.....software cannot damage hardware...but hardware can darned sure corrupt software....

get the computer up and running and do start > run > msconfig...now go to the boot.ini tab there and write down what it says is in the boot.ini file...

now turn the computer off for a few hours (enough time to "break" it) make sure that you still can't boot to windows then restart with the cd in and get to the recovery console...

at the recovery console type

bootcfg /list
write down the output there and post both (label one as "from windows" the othe as "from RC"