[allie mc]

Thanks everyone for the input. I knew it wasn't the software. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't screw it up worse or cause a hardware issue by all the hard booting and such that I was doing. It was going to happen anyway.

I'm not going to mess with the around removing the hard drive. I'll let the professionals do that.

You guys are great.

Thanks again!

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glad to be of help

[Mr Freeze]

glad to be of help

[allie mc]

Hey! Guess what?!

I discovered why the machine wasn't booting - quite by accident. First of all, I'm going to invest in a pair of glasses. What I thought was the orange light with the f was actually the battery charge light (lightning bolt). So it was really telling me it didn't have enough juice in the battery when it was flashing as I was trying to boot. I started wiggling the power source connection and found that it's loose. It only charges when I hold the power source into back of the computer. I set the machine on end, pushing the power source in all the way and the light burned solid orange. So YEAH! that issue has been determined. Get a knew power source.

So now the machine is running. I'm going to try the RC disk again and get back to you.

Thanks.

[allie mc]

The RC disk ran and completed. It said "CHKDSK found and fixed one or more errors on the volume". Looks like 3.

dsenette, I'm proceeding with your instructions.

Thanks,
Allie

[dsenette]

which instructions hehe? will it boot into windows now?

[allie mc]

Tried - nope. Back to the blue screen. What's next?

[dsenette]

ok...so the owner of the laptop doesn't have any data on it that she wants to keep right? if that's the case i'd try to run those recovery disks and put the machine back to factory settings

[allie mc]

Ugh. So that means I have to reinstall all of the updates from ? years ago?

Do you think this will work or it might work? Or is there a chance she'll be using this machine for a paper weight?

[dsenette]

Do you think this will work or it might work? Or is there a chance she'll be using this machine for a paper weight?

i tend to shy away from saying anything WILL work....it SHOULD work..but it's difficult (through an online forum like this) to say what the root cause is...could have bad ram could have a bad motherboard....no real way to tell from where we are...this SHOULD get the laptop back to a functional level...whether it stays that way is unpredictable

[allie mc]

Update -

I've restored from the recovery disks and downloaded all the windows updates. Working now on updating antivirus software. So making progress. Keep your fingers crossed. It will be fun typing that way.

You guys have been great as usual! Thanks a bunch for helping me.

Allie

[Mr Freeze]

well thats good to hear
glad you took the initative to go ahead
and install
so far things sound good

Edited by Mr Freeze, 14 September 2007 - 06:40 PM.

[dsenette]

hope everything goes smooth...let us know