[manogolf]

Hello,

My daughter brought home her very sick laptop from college for the weekend and I am supposed to perform a miracle by Monday.

Near as I can describe the bios is not loading. The hard drive is not being recognized, the monitor is not illuminating. A Problem? Well kinda.

The laptop is two years old and has had a variety of problems in the last year. I just popped a new hard drive in but this proved futile.

What else can I say? This one is beyond my experience. Oh, I know. I also tried plugging into an external monitor but nothing happening there either.

What else?

Jerry

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I think one of several things happened here a. your daughter or one of her friends might have accidentally removed a key component to windows or completely removed windows from the laptop but then you say the laptop start up screen doesn't show up I would imagine that the HP symbol or screen would show up so I'm unsure as to wether its that you removed windows or its a hardware malfunction the only advice that I have is to pop in the original installation disc or a restore disc if possible if that is possible you have a shot at being able to boot from that disc and re-install windows you may loose important files but at least you have a working laptop but if you can't do any of that its most likely hardware problems but like I said I'm not completely sure.try out those steps and responded with a result and we can go from there

[ajrichwalder]

I think one of several things happened here a. your daughter or one of her friends might have accidentally removed a key component to windows or completely removed windows from the laptop but then you say the laptop start up screen doesn't show up I would imagine that the HP symbol or screen would show up so I'm unsure as to wether its that you removed windows or its a hardware malfunction the only advice that I have is to pop in the original installation disc or a restore disc if possible if that is possible you have a shot at being able to boot from that disc and re-install windows you may loose important files but at least you have a working laptop but if you can't do any of that its most likely hardware problems but like I said I'm not completely sure.try out those steps and responded with a result and we can go from there

[manogolf]

I have HP recovery disk 1 and 2. The drive seems to be reading disk 1 but no display on integral or external monitor.

She has friends that are computer science majors so no telling what they attempted.

No problem with existing files being lost. I bought her a 750 gig backup drive for Christmas (I know how to pick a gift eh?)and she does have all files backed up. This was why I chose to go ahead and drop a new hard drive in.

[ajrichwalder]

ha that would be a gift for myself if I could afford it

and so that means its not a hardware problem....good because then if it was your kinda at a dead end but luckily your not.so her friends are into computers I dont think they mess around with anything important because they would know not what to play with. and its only reading disc 1? and not disc 2? how can you tell if there's no display and now I think I have an idea as to the problem here.I'm thinking that one of your display drivers is missing or damaged because if it can't load on a external monitor but there might be a few possibilities but my guess is display drivers......but does your laptop start up and what does it do if it does like show a manufacturer logo then quit or what?

[manogolf]

There is no display...at all....ever. I can tell the disk is being read by watching the indicator light (maybe that means nothing?) it blinks, stays lite, blinks, lite, etc. but does finally quit after about two minutes.

Maybe I am dead in the water.

[manogolf]

Whoa, hold on a minute. After attempt number 23 or so the built in display has come up and it is reading files.

Stay tuned.

[ajrichwalder]

you can't necessarily say that yet because I am tech savy ha but as noted in my previous post the most likely cause of your problems is display drivers and your best bet is to contact HP and they could help you more but at this point you might want to get physical help because what I would do is using the computer your using now and find display drivers for your laptop and find a usb cable and link the two together if possible.and perhaps the computer would read it and you could place the drivers right in it through there or if your laptop is connected to a lan in your home or wherever you may be as long as its on the network you are using you could access everything on that laptop and once again you could place the drivers into the right folder but I personally don't use HP so I don't know the folder layout for it sorry on that your using vista right? and about the whole hardware issue that also might be a factor but its tough to narrow it down to any one part

[ajrichwalder]

perhaps some type of issue with files that resovled it self more details please

[manogolf]

Not a fan of any packaged solution myself, HP, Dell, Compac, you can have them all. I have been building my own desktops for years and very seldom have a problem.

Her grandfather bought this thing as a present for being accepted to UCLA a couple of years ago. It has been the bane of my existence ever since. Every holiday I end up messing with this thing instead of being able enjoying our little bit of time together.

[ajrichwalder]

well that must be a challenge but if I ever had so much trouble with one computer I would move on........at first I was thinking maybe there were problems with your monitor but then said it loads can it boot into windows?

[manogolf]

The issue was as I originally suspected.

HP reported problems with a few of their laptop models and this series was effected. Problems were monitors suddenly turning off and cooling fans making excessive noise. Both were fixed in a bios update at the end of 2007.

The new hard drive I installed was likely unnecessary but it is done now. Continuous attempts at trying to get the bios to load was probably the cure. It took probably 25-30 instances of turning the computer on and off before the monitor finally appeared and it was just a matter of updating the bios at that point.

For now all seems well and I hope this is behind me.

Thanks for being a sounding board.

Jerry

[ajrichwalder]

thanks for choosing geekstogo with your computer isssues if you have anymore problems or questions in the future feel free to ask