Laptops Dead
 

Hiya all, well tonight my girlfriend and I are doing our normal chatting away online thing to relatives in other countries and such, her laptop freezes, and would not respond to a single command and I tried everything, all I got was the HD light jammed on.

There was no harsh noises no bad smell, nothing. She has not installed anything to my knowledge even though I asked her although shes a little miffed now as its broken down.

It runs on Windows Xp Home Sp2, and in all the months we have had it we have had no issues like this. We did encounter some virus a few days back which I removed in safe mode.

Now on reboot from this ( hard reboot turn power off) it gets to the Windows GUI bootscreen and locks there forever wont move. I then tried safe mode without networking and same again locks up on mup.sys, tried it again WITH networking ( she runs a ethernet from her laptop to my pc to provide my net) same again locks up.

I managed to get online by removing the ethernet from her laptop and putting it into the SACM and removing the usb lead also, thankfully without a reboot I am online however i wont reboot or anything.

Anyone able to offer some tips here or is it totally knackered, it has been used hard over the past months its specs follows.

Acer Aspire 1355lc
Amd Athlon Xp 2600-Mobile.
256mb 333mhz Ram.
30gb 5400rpm HD
S3 Onboard Visuals
DVD-ROM/CDRW Combi Drive
15inch Wga 1024 by 768 screen 32bit.
AC97 Onboard sound

Thanks all.

p.s: and what do you use to clean tft screens? hers is FILTHY!

Re: Laptops Dead
 

I have found this problem caused y sp2.. sometimes even after a while of using the machine with sp2...

Trie running it throuch the recovery console and doing a chkdsk... that may just fix it....

Good news, it should not mean a dead laptop..

http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/31874/
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oh and for cleaning a tft screen, soft damp cloth and a good wipe dry normaly does the biz

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Sounds complex also both our systems dont have a full copy of Xp Home they both run a ghost image which just replaces it without the option to repair.

She does have files on there we thought was safe thankfully I have most of the critical ones.

Any ideas I will greeny to the greenys go grey for help here as we need this laptop running asap!.
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Okay somethings happening I left it just on the windows gui bootscreen I went to get my pizza which just arrived and it has now got into scandisk and is replacing ALOT and I am serious ALOT of bad clusters.

All I will add are in system32 folder the same folder as the virus got into.

Re: Laptops Dead
 

hmm does sound maybe viral related, get it back into the system, run a full virusscan, (i would personally thouh backup all important work first incase it goes bang) then run, some hard drive diagnostics to check the quality of the hardrive, you might as well rule that out, then defrag and see how you go..

You may find it somewhat difficult to do much else without the original windoes CD..

Re: Laptops Dead
 

I will see what it does if i can get back into the main windows thing I shall reestablish the network link back up her entire document files then get into this thing.
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Right now it has fixed alot of bad clusteres and is verifying free space and has run surface scans and alsorts and says the HD is now in good health after the bad clusters are fixed.
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Well it has locked up on 25% checking free space and verifying.

I shall leave it about 40minutes to check itself out although I am getting worried with all those bad clusters if the HD is knackered. And I have no fecking Idea how to replace one in this laptop nether to I have the cash, although it is under warranty with some small dealer called Misson Computers, so its reciept hunting time.

Re: Laptops Dead
 

hmm does sound like it might be the start of a dead hardrive.. dig out the receipt and get it done for three, if not Acers as with most laptops are incredibly easiy to change.. look on the bottom for a compartment with an opening around 3.5 inches wide... normally with one or 2 screws holding it closed, undo these slide old hard drive out.. then slide new one in.... re-start bobs your aunties mother etc..

Re: Laptops Dead
 

I undo the screws as you say and all I can see is the Ram and not the HD?

Re: Laptops Dead
 

arr that will be the ram panel.. it should be on the side edge of the laptop.. so it slides out from the side much like the cdrom etc..

Re: Laptops Dead
 

So I just undo the screws and then the hd should just slide out? what about the IDE leads and Power Supply connectors? I cannot see the HD at all just PCB's the ram area and another circuit.

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Just a small point..... If you're considering returning this under warranty it might be a good idea not to "fiddle" to much in case they accuse you of breaking it and refuse to honour the warranty..

Re: Laptops Dead
 

yep.. sounds like you have the wrong panel off.. if it is on the bottom of the laptop and not the side, you are looking for a panel 3-4inches wide buy about 7inches long. kinda oblong shape.. you do not have IDE cables power conenctors etc in laptops, they just have a single style connector...
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Rastlin has a very good point.. if you can leave it for them to do it free. and if it is a small shop they may well... get funny if they notice screws have been removed etc...

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Hmmm there is no other panel with screws on the underside or side of the laptop although the HD is there but no noticeable way to remove it.

I shall have to get in touch with the shop later tommorow then. Shame it is needed and if we cannot find the receipt looks like I have to fix it.

Anyone know a good place for cheap reliable laptop HD's about 30gb in size?

Re: Laptops Dead
 

try ww.misco.com they always have good deals and can do next day delivery..

in the pic of what i beleive to be your lappy i marked with a red dot where the hd bay is.. its also marked number 5...


If ita a small local shop they may only charge you an extera £10 on top of the new h/d to fit it.. this would be the simplest route..

Re: Laptops Dead
 

That underside is my girlfriends laptop yes and I shall check that bay tommorow ( shes out ) thanks for tips I am off to collapse onto the bed nowt much more I can do here.

See you all at 7am.

Millay would rep you more then I have done but I cant.

Someone greeny him for me plz :D

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Thats cool, i offer help when i can... thats what im here for.. well ok part of it lol :)

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Done, nice one Millay :tu:

Re: Laptops Dead
 

misco.com? :confused: Was that a late night URL Millay??

Re: Laptops Dead
 

opsie :dunce: i meant www.misco.co.uk

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Didn't think you wanted us to be buying refractometers lol ;)

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Well tried to format the thing today, and well as the picture shows I have to use a ghost image disk to reinstall the laptops version of XP and this aint working I just get this error over and over again and I think now the HD is cooked.


Edit: finally got the image to upload.

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Well thats the CD drive its trying to read, is the CD all clean and spangly... It seems i high letter to mount the CD drive to.. perhaps that someting to do with ghost, never really used that myself...

Re: Laptops Dead
 

If it's still under warranty then don't bother wasting your time - take it back to the shop you bought it from and get them to fix it. That's what you pay a warranty for.

If you had no warranty then by all means try fixing it yourself, but there's no point in doing it yourself if you've paid someone else to do that for you.

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Or if you want you can deal direct with Acer, as many shops will still pass the job onto them. Normally once you've called them and they've verified the fault they will collect the laptop from you and return it via courier. You could try calling them on 0870 853 1000. If you decide to do this then it might be a good idea to run the hard drive diagnostic tool for that particular make of drive if you can ( www.ultimatebootcd.com ) so that you get an 'official' error code you can quote, often cuts down the call time!

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Acer are pretty good and effiecent, not like compaq, who were not interested in the slightest when the first PC showed a fatal XE. We deal with them at work and they are always helpful.

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Phoned my local shop who told me to press some buttons and stuff and do things, and now I have reinstalled Windows with the occasional fault on the Z drive on way through, so far so good its booted to the desktop and is slowly getting there.

I am to take it in on Monday so shall see how it goes and wether I can find the reciept :erm:

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Okay its dead now died totally on me, I managed to get Windows back on it, even the net firewall AV and Messenger, went to install it to work my ethernet to my pc from its USB internet. And wham froze, reboot froze after loggin in.

It defragmented okay with only a few segments of critical system files unremovable.

Cannot find the issue to be Windows surely??

Looks like I am receipt searching, also new monitor for me and now a new system for my fiance.

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Worst cases - 1) CD Drive dying, 2) Hard drive dying, 3) laptop fried

try the first 2 before anything else, to check the CD, burn a bootable CD with something like spinrite or a live linux distro on it, boot from it and see if it reads without errors.

If it works, try the HD, spinrite will do that GRC's Website
If it's the CD Drive, they are under £100, if it's the HD, spoton have them for around £45, both are cheaper than a new system.

Re: Laptops Dead
 

Well it booted from cd drive to restore the OS onto the HD, the HD works because Windows has booted, however its laggy and randomly freezes and locks up for no reason, and is a very annoying system to use ans one minute its fine then the next its dead.

I may have to return it if I can find the reciept which I aint having much luck, as we did not ever place to keep the Laptop this long.