[Helio]

I've seen many similar postings, but no appropriate solutions. I'm using a Sony Vaio laptop with Windows XP, 512 RAM.
Sometimes (with more and more frequency lately) the computer freezes on booting before reaching POST. I simply get the power light, a black screen with blinking cursor, and frozen mouse, keyboard, etc..
After I do a forced-shutdown, a few repeated attempts will usually allow me to boot up and function normally. I can't determine any rhyme or reason to when it chooses to boot normally or not (I press the power button harder, longer, battery removed, cd in drive - none of these seem to matter).
My Checkdisk reports no problems, I've reinstalled the original BIOS, and now I have just done a System Recovery. To my surprise the problem persists.
I suppose this points to a Hardware problem.... Is there anything I can do besides trash this laptop (which functions perfectly well once it does boot up)??? Help please.
Thank you!

Edited by Helio, 23 February 2008 - 04:57 PM.

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This is usually a hard drive that is going bad. A good computer shop can transfer your system to another hard drive to fix the problem.

SRX660

[SRX660]

This is usually a hard drive that is going bad. A good computer shop can transfer your system to another hard drive to fix the problem.

SRX660

[Helio]

This is usually a hard drive that is going bad. A good computer shop can transfer your system to another hard drive to fix the problem.

SRX660

This occurred to me, and of course is possible, but I did replace my hard drive less than a year ago. And once I get beyond the initial cold boot, everything runs perfectly well. Any other thoughts?

[SRX660]

When you have a blinking curser in the top left corner all that tells you is the BIOS loaded and the boot system did boot up. beyond that you access either floppy drive, hard drive or cdrom drive. More than likely you have a bad sector in the boot sector of the hard drive. Sometimes it will read the sector and sometimes it does not. This will continue until the sector becomes completely corrupted and the computer will no longer boot up at all. Perhaps it could be a virus you have downloaded and you may try checking on that. I have seen dozens of laptops with the same problem and usually a change of hard drive cures the problem.

SRX660

[Helio]

Thank you for the insightful reply. Is it possible for a virus to survive on the computer after I perform a System Recovery?
Thanks again!