Packard Bell won't start

[ajj]

I have a Packard Bell imedia b2218uk a year old didn't do extended warranty thought it would last at least a couple of years now when I switch it on the harddrive is working overtime then just switches off without booting up. Did get it to almost boot once but came up with message "no medium" then switch off once again, can anyone please help before I spend money having a new machine repaired. Thany you

Do you have a physical set of backup disks?

- if you do you can probably replace the failed hard disk with a new one & restore from the backup disks.

Whichever way you manage to get your system working you will probably have lost all your saved documents, installed programs, etc, etc - you will only have a machine restored to the first day you got it.

Any 'repair' would be likely to be the same, unless the repairer was able to access data on the failed drive & restore it - this is possible, but can be expensive, depending on the problem.

dont spose its getting hot is it? system do not normally switch off if there is just a software error

[Pog66]

if it's just the boot partition that's corrupted then booting from a CD may get the OP to a position where any data can be rescued - alternatively sticking the disk in another machine will achieve the same result.

Time to fired your local friendly IT person

I need clarification on this switches off part.

Does the PC switch off?

If there is a hard drive fault it will error the drive and tell you there is an error or even reboot cuz of a BSOD but to switch off?

Perhaps its a power issue? psu failing not supplying enough juice to HDD then cutting out totally? without more info all we are doing is guessing

[Lord Nikon]

I've also seen machines switch off due to fried capacitors on the motherboard...

Umm, small point, since this was bought in the UK isn't this sort of issue covered by the Sales and supply of goods and services act? or failing that European Directive 1999/44/EC? Either way it still should be covered (After the prerequisite arguments) by PC World / whichever DSG branch sold it.

[ajj]

Thank you all for your suggestions so far I will try a few things more and give more info and I do have back up disks so I could change the hard drive if necessary, perhaps this will teach me a lesson for buying a cheap computer