[NOTEVER]

Fujitsu Amilo L7320GW

Laptop wouldn't boot up and all I got was an error message saying missing or corrupt config file. So I thought the best bet was to reinstall XP. Unfortunately the CD/DVD drive just make a noise when I put in the XP disk as though its unable to read the disk. Bios is accessible so I connected an external floppy drive and used the 6 boot disks to reload XP but getting to disk 6 produces the BSOD. Tried several times and the same thing happens. Took out the hard drive and connected it via a IDE cable to the USB port on my desktop. All the files are shown so I formatted the disk hoping that would help, but it doesn't make any difference. Ran CHECKDISK which showed no problems. Once I put it back into the laptop all I get now is a black screen with the cursor flashing and still unable to load XP. Does it mean the motherboard is shot? Can anyone suggest anyway of getting my laptop back to life.

Many thanks

Edited by NOTEVER, 24 September 2009 - 03:06 AM.

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Unfortunately the CD/DVD drive just make a noise when I put in the XP disk as though its unable to read the disk.

What kind of disk is this... OEM, Retail? Have you tried putting it into you desktop CDROM to see if it starts up? You might have a bad disk, or you laptop CDROM might be bad... hard to tell. If you put the disk into your desktop CDROM (while in Windows), then the disk should give you a window similar to this...
[attachment=34567:xp_additional.gif]... this will at least tell you if the disk is readable. If it is, then you might want to get a hold of, (buy or borrow) a USB CDROM drive and try booting from that.

[makai]

Unfortunately the CD/DVD drive just make a noise when I put in the XP disk as though its unable to read the disk.

What kind of disk is this... OEM, Retail? Have you tried putting it into you desktop CDROM to see if it starts up? You might have a bad disk, or you laptop CDROM might be bad... hard to tell. If you put the disk into your desktop CDROM (while in Windows), then the disk should give you a window similar to this...
[attachment=34567:xp_additional.gif]... this will at least tell you if the disk is readable. If it is, then you might want to get a hold of, (buy or borrow) a USB CDROM drive and try booting from that.

[NOTEVER]

OEM. The disk opens fine on my desktop so it must be a dodgy cd drive. I'll try and source an external one but wont that have the same problem as the floppy boot disks?
Thanks for you help

[makai]

Since you mentioned you went into the bios, I didn't ask if you changed the bios so the laptop boots from the CDROM... took it for granted that you knew to do this. In any case, the 6 floppies are for installing drivers to make a non-bootable CDROM be able to run the XP install disk. If you were never able to completely finish installing all the floppies, and your CDROM is not a bootable type, then you will probably be in the same place with an external CDROM. Is there an option in bios to allow booting from the CDROM? Also, I don't know how/where you got the floppies from, but you may want to visit MS to create the floppies again... could be just a bad floppy holding you up.

[NOTEVER]

Makai

Yes I changed to BIOS to boot from the cd. The floppies as you mentioned I got from the MS site. Actually did them twice in case of a bad first set. By the way the BIOS has an option to boot from LAN. Is that a viable option and if so how? I can't source an external drive and as it looks as though its a dead machine I don't want to waste any funds buying one. Anything else I could try that might save this pc it seems a shame as its in excellent condition.
Cheers

[makai]

By the way the BIOS has an option to boot from LAN

Seriously, I'm not versed in this as I've never needed to attempt it. I know its possible, but I don't know what it'll take.

I tend to believe the machine isn't dead (actually I always hope it isn't the case!). The fact that you got a blue screen means the machine was trying to boot windows and the config error doesn't necessarily point to a hardware problem. If there was a real hardware problem, you wouldn't even be able to get into bios. It may be a good idea to set bios to all default conditions, reseat the ram, the harddrive, and CDROM, and try again with booting the XP install disk.

You could also try is to borrow an XP installation disk... doesn't matter if its home, pro, etc... just try it to see if it'll boot up in the machine. Do you have the disk that was originally used on your desktop? Try it. The fact that you can command bios to boot from the CDROM tells me the machine has a bootable CDROM, and so the floppies shouldn't be needed.

[NOTEVER]

Tried your suggestions but too no avail. Used another install disk but again no change. CD drive just makes a noise and doesn't seem to want to read anything.
Disconnected my desktop hard drive and booted my machine thru a usb cable with the laptop hard drive attached. Seemed to be going ok gave me options to creat a partition or repair and then install but when I chose one it said I needed specialist software to continue. It didn't explain what software though so I'm no further on. Thanks again for all your advice

[makai]

<snip>... said I needed specialist software to continue ... <snip>

Not sure what this is either. However, booting/installing Windows from a USB Harddrive takes more than just installing Windows (if successful). Because Windows takes over the USB chore from Bios, at some point Windows will get lost because there'll be no drive Windows can boot from because the USB takeover will become terminated. There have been successful attempts at booting from a USB harddrive, but not without a lot of additional work. You can read THIS as an example. I haven't tried it, but it seems interesting.

I'm not exactly sure where to go without some way to install Windows from the CD. I've read and re-read this thread, and it really seems the CDROM is defective. But... there's no guarantee that it is, so spending money may not fix this. Hard decision either way for you. You could attempt cleaning it, if you have a CDROM laser cleaner or high content Isopropal alcohol (99% pure).

Also, instead of depending on Bios to choose the boot device, have you tried tapping the ESC, F8, f10, or F12 key right after turn on to see if you can get the boot menu to show up. Sometimes, bios will not choose the correct device, so maybe forcing it through the boot menu might help. Long shot, since the CDROM is spinning, but worth a try.

In the meantime, I'll go ping some of the other techs for ideas. Hopefully, someone can come up with something.

[Troy]

Hi there,

Have you tried anything else, like a simple memory diagnostic that boots from CD? If even that doesn't work then I would suggest a bad CD-ROM drive also.

Another thought, is there a BIOS update available?

Troy

[NOTEVER]

Thanks Makai for all your help

Troy I'll check for an update but I'm not sure how to do that but I'm sure I'll find out how if ones available, Cheers

[happyrock]

does your laptop have a recovery partition...check with your manufactures website/support...
it may be as simple as pressing the esc and the F11 keys on power up to get to it...

[makai]

Thanks for popping in guys!

[Troy]

You can easily make your own following an old guide I wrote up:

http://www.geekstogo...SC-t177373.html

You would need to do it on another computer, of course.

Troy

[NOTEVER]

Happyrock unfortunately no recovery partition.

Troy thanks again for the link

Makai I thought I'd try the example booting from a USB but I hit a snag. Tried using the Cab SDK software but it doesn't seem to allow me to extract the files as in the example. I'm probably doing it wrong so If you could tell me exactly how (in very very simple terms) to use this bit of software I be grateful.
Cheers

[makai]

I have to apologize... the link I provided is not what you actually need/want to do. The link is for creating a bootable XP USB device. It's not for installing XP from a USB flash drive. My apologies!

The good thing is that there are many links on how to install XP using a flash drive.. HERE, HERE HERE, and HERE. Plus many more on Google.

Reading through the articles, some are very similar, if not basically the same. I can only advise you read and follow very carefully so as not to damage anything on the host computer as you create this USB flash XP install. I have to state this because I've never attempted it and so I don't know the ramifications that may occur. It seems more or less straight forward from what I gather, and from the articles, there seems to be a high success rate.

I think I'll try it myself today!

By the way, Troy mentioned something about trying to boot from a memory test bootable CD. I think he was getting at trying to find out if anything at all will boot from the CDROM drive. Have you tried anything else besides XP discs? You might try Memtest86... iso found HERE. It'll cost you a CD disk to burn.