[Manners]

I think NSpire is just basicaly the case. If you google the model number it is Centrino. As I said, this was custom built and not bought in a store.

The black screen before Windows starts does say I can boot from CD. I will check the other now. It is just so hard to do everything in between blue screen crashes and hanging. very frustrating!!!

I downloaded Drive Image also for the external. Haven't tried to use it. Things that take hours seem to get to the very end and then crash.

Running out of Tylenol! LOL!!!

My user manuel is on CD. Not real helpful.

OK. Now will go to look for BIOS.

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did u try a scan disk after the boot from XP CD?

[Compnoobie]

did u try a scan disk after the boot from XP CD?

[Manners]

I think the NSpire is just the case! The model number comes up under a bunch of makers and is Centrino The computer is not a brand because it was custom built and was not bought in a store. The documentation is generic and says "take to a technician."

I can boot to CD but not USB. I cannot run checkdisk from the cd because it just starts loading files. I have no idea how to transfer those files into the external drive. It doesn't give me a chance to pck where I want it to go. I guess I could copy the CD to external and see if that works. I can also make a ghost image. Everything is so hard to do with the constant hanging and blue screens.

Just got a different one that did not automatically restart. Looked far more ominous. at least I could read this one and it had a STOP. C000021a. Then OXC0000005 and two OX's with all zeros afterwards. Any idea what that means??

On this model, you don't have to take the entire laptop apart to find the drive. The case is held in by one screw on the bottom.

My terminally ill hard drive is Toshiba MK4025GAS (IDE).

If I can get how to get it all back together planned, we are ready for hard drive surgery tomorrow. We're going to buy compatible new hard drive in the morning.

Manners

[Manners]

Just wanted to update and thank you for the help. The hard drive finally died completely and I ordered another one which was delivered today. It took 5 minutes to install the new hard drive on the laptop. Very easy. Followed a couple of tips online. Total cost is $44.95 and the laptop is running beautifully!