[gerryf]

this thing does not have an internal cd....only connects with a cable to a propritary connection.....

hate these....what kind of laptop is it?

Can you run windows in safe mode, and then does it see the cd-rom?

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Its a Tosh Portege 3110CT
It also reboots itself in Safe Mode

[bbruce]

Its a Tosh Portege 3110CT
It also reboots itself in Safe Mode

[bbruce]

Has this got everyone stumped?
I may have a solution: I put a copy of the W2000 CD on the hard drive - can I get to it in DOS and boot from it?

[gerryf]

this may come as a bit of a shock to you, but we are all volunteers and as such, we like to take a bit of a break now and then.

Be patient

is the harddrive formatted as fat32 or ntfs

How long, exactly, does the PC stay up before rebooting?

And also, it might have helped if you explained this is a REALLY OLD laptop

Random Reboots are often caused by heat--when was the last time this puppy was opened up and cleaned out? You've likely got 5 years of accumulated cat hairs in this thing clogging the fans and vents.

Do you feel comfortable with the idea of opening a laptop? You can try using a can of compressed air on the vents if not, but it would be advisable to use a pin or toothpick to hold the fans in place when blasting with compressed air.

Compressed air will often spin a fan faster then it is spec'd to, resulting in burning out the bearings, so a smart thing to do is to hold the fan in place when clearing with compressed air

[bbruce]

Sorry, didn't mean to appear pushy. I had run out of ideas until I had that last lightbulb moment but hopefully others haven't. I'm grateful for anyone taking the time to help.
I would reformat the HDD but there are some photos I would lose.
Its FAT32.
It stays up less than one second so I doubt it could get hot in the startup time.
Its old but hasn't had a lot of use and we don't have a cat.
I don't mind opening it up - I had a usb vac for Xmas so its about time I used it.
I'll watch the fan in any case.

Edited by bbruce, 02 March 2006 - 10:15 AM.

[gerryf]

fat32 works....

any idea if this thing is hot swappable? I had an old IBM where I could boot with a win98 boot floppy, then unplug it and plug in the cd-rom

If so, you can then just run winnt.exe in the i386 directory, the reinstall windows 2000 to the same directory (c:\winnt is the default)

[bbruce]

I can have the floppy and CD rom connected at the same time but the bios doesn't offer CDRom in the boot preferences.
I think I can find a W98SE boot floppy

[computerwiz12890]

If you can't find a Win98 boot floppy, you can actually download what you need to make one from this website:

http://www.bootdisk.com/

[bbruce]

Many thanks,
I'll have a go tomorrow.

[bbruce]

Bootdisk seemed to work.
Got offered to start with CD assistance but then it couln't discover it so had to continue with floppy.
Got a:, changed it to c: dir but couldn't find the copy of the W2000 CD I put on the c drive - is there a way?

[computerwiz12890]

I think we made a mistake. This is a Win2000 computer right? That would mean your files are formated for NTFS, not FAT32. So...the Win98 boot disk will not be able to access your hard drive. Then again, you said it was FAT32. But working in DOS is not my area of expertise...

If I were you, I'd make a Ultimate Boot CD for windows by going to http://www.ubcd4win.com/. It takes a bit of time, and you will need an XP CD. But once you have this diagnostic CD, you can access your files and back them up. You can also perform repairs/diagnostics from this CD. It is very user-friendly, unlike DOS.

Edited by computerwiz12890, 07 March 2006 - 09:00 AM.

[bbruce]

Thanks, I'll do that for future although it won't help my problem as the CD drive doesn't get recognised in the bios.
The computer originally had W98SE but I installed W2k 6 months ago on top of it. Was quite an improvement until I started downloading patches.
There is a copy of both installation disks on the hard drive. If I can get to them in DOS....
I thought it was still FAT 32 and as the W98 boot disk gets me to C: does it mean I was right?

[computerwiz12890]

I thought it was still FAT 32 and as the W98 boot disk gets me to C: does it mean I was right?

If you can get to C: and see your data, then it is FAT32.


I have an idea, a great idea, and fairly cheap idea too

You could buy a USB adapter for your laptop hard drive. That way, you could take your hard drive out, put it in the adapter, and plug it up to a working computer and save your data. Once you got all the data off, you can put it back and reformat, without having to worry about losing anything. And if you have the problem again in the future, or one similar, you can easily take your hard drive out again and save your data.

How ya like that idea?

Edited by computerwiz12890, 08 March 2006 - 07:42 AM.

[bbruce]

That is a great idea cw....... Thanks
I'll look for one, maybe even borrow one.
Its about 200 photos the wife took which I'd rather not lose.

[gerryf]

just out of curiousity, what happens when you type

DIR
<Enter>

at c:\>?