[djgotee]

If you havent already done this, try to boot off your xp cd. set the bios to boot from cd.

a few posts ago i sugessted this:

Oh and also, in looking back at your first post, i see you considered booting off your restore disk? Try to, you have nothing to lose, if it boots, it will just stop on a menu and you can exit out of this proceedure not affecting anything on your computer. It will just verify if the computer is finnishing post. Do you know how to set the boot priority for the CD drive , so you can boot off the cd?

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jdajos, when you get to the point where you know you cant boot from a floppy or a CD, its probably time to figure you are not completing post. That probably means hardware problems. Do you hear any beeps? and forgive me, i have not checked back and read all of this thread again, so let me ask if you tryed to get into bios? Im thinking you will not be able to.

[djgotee]

jdajos, when you get to the point where you know you cant boot from a floppy or a CD, its probably time to figure you are not completing post. That probably means hardware problems. Do you hear any beeps? and forgive me, i have not checked back and read all of this thread again, so let me ask if you tryed to get into bios? Im thinking you will not be able to.

[djgotee]

jdajos, just for a fast check, try to reset your bios. do you know how to do this? Dont worry if you reset the bios correctly, and it cures the computer, you can always enter bios and reconfigure the parameters again.

[jdajos]

Hi digotee,

1. It will turn on from the restore cd. I have not tried to restore the computer yet but that may be coming soon.

2. There are no beeps during startup.

3. The BIOS does come up and it has been restred to defaults. The boot order is cd, external device, hard drive, then netwrok boot (disabled).

4. I don't have an xp cd to try to boot from. The computer was bought from a large retail store and they didn't supply a hard copy of any software that was on it. Just the restore disk and an applications recovery disk.

Applications recovery needs to be in windows to run so it has not been a tool for us to use.

I've looked around a bit and it appears there is a memory slot problem with the Sony Vaio. I may try to replace the RAM if there is a way I can return it if it does not fix the problem.

Thank you for the help. If the memory doesn't fix it I'll try using the restore disk and deleting all data. Thank you again.

-Jeff

[djgotee]

If you can boot off your restore disk, theres a very good chance the problem you have may not be attributed to hardware. Im assuming we should look at a possible mbr problem now...

[djgotee]

I think you can boot into your restore disk and get to the recovery consule, correct? If you can , you may want to try to restore the mbr? (fixmbr)

[djgotee]

Oh, and im not sure you know this but, placing alll the settings in your bios to default is not the same as resetting the bios. Did you klnow that?

[jdajos]

I didn't know that setting BIOS to default is not the same as resetting it. I'll look into restting the BIOS and try to locate fixmbr on the restore disk.

I'll let you know if it works.

[djgotee]

The restore disk would have to be able to let you get to the recovery consule. Im not sure all do. But if you can get to the recovery consule, try fixmbr.

Resetting the bios can be done 2 ways, (first shut off the computer and pull the plug.) either by changing a position on a jumper on your motherboard (see your MB manual)

or by pulling out the battery for at least 5 mins..

[djgotee]

Also, if you know anyone who has an xp install disk (one from microsoft) you can get to the recovery consule from it. ask if you dont know what im talking about, ok?

[jdajos]

We'll try to find an XP recovery disk. If this doesn't work I'm going to look into the common problems with the moemory. If this doesn't work I'm going to try to reload the whole machine and try to keep it backed up everyday (or buy a new computer).

[jdajos]

We did it. Th system recovery disk fixed the preoblem, for now. I guess this was a valuable lesson in the importance of backing up your files.

Thank you very much for all of your help.