Laptop OS problem

[KU40 173]

Yesterday my girlfriend was doing homework on my computer and was trying to open Microsoft Word when the computer froze. She said it was making "thinking noises" but grew impatient and did a hard turn-off. Then when she turned it back on it said "Operating system not found" and wouldn't load. I've never had problems with it before other than an occassional blue screen if I leave the computer on too long because it seems that it doesn't like my wireless adapter sometimes. I just unplug it and it reloads fine. It's a Dell Inspiron 2600 laptop that's almost 7 years old now.

I get home after work, oblivious to the problem, and turn it on. It comes up with an options screen asking how it would like me to load it, and the options were to load in safe mode, load with last known working settings, or load normally. I didn't know what happened so I just chose to load normally. It thought for a while, the Windows XP screen popped up and seemed like it was working, then came up with a blue screen. So I shut it off and the process repeated itself. I should have chosen to load either in safe mode or with last known working settings that time, but I was still confused and again chose to load normally. This time it thought for a really long time, then came up with "Operating system not found." So I turned it off, waited a while, and turned it back on, and after one screen saying it was loading MBA, it said "OS not found" again. Then each of the 47 subsequent times I tried restarting, it did the same thing.

So apparently it seems that my computer can't find my operating system (Windows XP). Nice conclusion, huh? Anyways, I don't have an XP cd to reload it. I was going to take it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy to see if they could fix it, but being the fix-it-myself kind of guy I was hoping to try and reinstall windows first. But Best Buy no longer sells XP, only Vista. I like XP. I don't want to buy Vista just to try it, because that junk costs $200 and I can just get a whole new laptop for twice that.

Has anyone had any experience with this before? I'm hoping I don't have to reformat for obvious reasons, the main of which is that I've never backed it up. Oops. But if I did, would there be any way to get the data off of my hard drive without the OS working? Like basically syphon it off with another computer through the USB port or something? My girlfriend has the touch of death. Her laptop just messed up last week and has all kinds of errors and won't do anything. We barely got all of her thousand pictures and school stuff onto an external hard drive. We'll be reformatting that before long because it's totally worthless as it is.

[Bobaflob 0]

Sounds like a bad drive. I would run a memory diagnostic to make sure its not ram though. Link to mem diag: http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

[Bobaflob 0]

Your laptop should have an xp coa tag on it also. You could just take key off of that,get a cd, and then reinstall.

Edited April 24, 2009 by Bobaflob

[talon09 0]

http://masterfree.info/windows-xp-pro.html

or u can go here and dowload any windows u want for free including drivers

[KU40 173]

One of my coworkers suggested doing a system recall, where it basically refers back to the last time your computer was updated or worked, and you'd lose everything between when that happened and now. Does that sound like a decent option? That seems like it would be a lot easier, although I really don't know when it would back up to.

[KU40 173]

Your laptop should have an xp coa tag on it also. You could just take key off of that,get a cd, and then reinstall.

Good thinking, I had forgotten about that.

[Bobaflob 0]

Try a system restore. Also, all dells have restore partition. Google on how to access it and restore tyhrough there

[KU40 173]

Well I'm pretty sure the hard drive is fried. When I go into the setup screen by hitting F2, there's a list of the hardware, except next to hard disk it says "none." well, I suppose I'm going to get a new desktop. Any suggestions on a good brand? I've always liked Dell.

[RobClay 20]

Iv'e seen alot of nice HP's.

Look into some.

[davidg121 0]

make sure the hdd is plugged in... (it may sound dumb but ud be amazed how many customers ive had where there hdds came loose)

[KU40 173]

I took it to Geek Squad on Friday and on Saturday they called saying that they couldn't get anything off of the hard drive, it had totally failed in a bad way. But my keyboard had come unplugged inside one time so I had to open it and make a good connection again. I hear that is somewhat common. But they remove the hard drive to try to retain information from it, so unfortunately that couldn't be it. I wish it was only an unplugged hard drive!

Anyways, I bought a Dell Inspiron 530s. My choices were limited because I required a downgrade to XP (I like it, not a fan of Vista.....yet), and since they make you buy an OS anyways, may as well get both (they include the Vista installation CD for "When you're ready for the switch). I thought about a laptop but desktops just give you so much more performance for the price. I custom-built it, so it won't get here for about two weeks. I'm a bit excited because it has like 2.5x the processing power + double the cores, nearly 6 times the RAM, 20x the hard drive space, larger screen, better graphics card, etc. etc. etc. than my 7 year old laptop. The CPU was 850 after shipping and I chose not to get a monitor because I'm going to get one from best buy so that I can see them before I buy and because I get a discount there. So almost $1,000 total, but compare that to the almost $2,000 that my laptop was 7 years ago plus all of the additional performance. Wow. I can't wait! Now I just have to redo all of the stuff I lost

Oh, and we found out that my gf's computer has at least one virus as the cause of her problem. Which we then transferred to her external hard drive when we backed up the photos onto it. Oops. Glad we didn't plug it into my computer to back up my stuff, though not that it mattered because it failed anyway.

[NB50 206]

I'm not sure I would totally trust the geek squad. I've been able to fix problems they couldn't. There are some tricks to getting information off that they might not do. If I was in Kansas I would look at it for you.

[inkfx 3]

Geek squad just does what will get them the most money.

[KU40 173]

Yeah that could be true. I have a friend who says he wants to try getting info off of my hard drive because a lot of times stores like that will just hook the hard drive up to their computer but if it doesn't come up with that easy fix right away they just give up. But he said he'll try some other things, the one I can remember is putting a different/new motor in to see if that'll spin it since maybe mine is broken.

at least the Geek Squad gave me a full refund. I paid about 110 up front and they were supposed to refund 70 if they couldn't get anything off, but when I went back they refunded the whole thing. So that's cool.

[Xinux 0]

Yeah that could be true. I have a friend who says he wants to try getting info off of my hard drive because a lot of times stores like that will just hook the hard drive up to their computer but if it doesn't come up with that easy fix right away they just give up. But he said he'll try some other things, the one I can remember is putting a different/new motor in to see if that'll spin it since maybe mine is broken.

at least the Geek Squad gave me a full refund. I paid about 110 up front and they were supposed to refund 70 if they couldn't get anything off, but when I went back they refunded the whole thing. So that's cool.

One thing that has worked for many people is take the hard drive out, seal it in a zip lock bag, and shove that sucker in the freezer for a few hours (it seems the longer you keep it in there the more time it buys you), take it out, shove it back in and see if it works. If that works than quickly get all your data off of that drive, because it's not a permanent fix and could possible fail in seconds or minutes.

Edited October 9, 2009 by Xinux

[sl33py 0]

Yeah that could be true. I have a friend who says he wants to try getting info off of my hard drive because a lot of times stores like that will just hook the hard drive up to their computer but if it doesn't come up with that easy fix right away they just give up. But he said he'll try some other things, the one I can remember is putting a different/new motor in to see if that'll spin it since maybe mine is broken.

at least the Geek Squad gave me a full refund. I paid about 110 up front and they were supposed to refund 70 if they couldn't get anything off, but when I went back they refunded the whole thing. So that's cool.

One thing that has worked for many people is take the hard drive out, seal it in a zip lock bag, and shove that sucker in the freezer for a few hours (it seems the longer you keep it in there the more time it buys you), take it out, shove it back in and see if it works. If that works than quickly get all your data off of that drive, because it's not a permanent fix and could possible fail in seconds or minutes.

Agreed. Also leaving it in the ziplock w/ a bag of peas on each side can help extend it a bit further. As long as your drive isn't "clacking" where the head is slapping repeatedly, this sometimes will help you get the data off before it dies completely.

Geeksquad couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. Save your $ and post up for help on your local CL. You can get a real IT guy for less typically (especially nowadays), and actually fix the issue...

I see you already got the Inspiron 530. One thing to look at is the Vostro line of desktopss and laptops - you can usually get it with Ubuntu and save a bit of $ by not buying hte OS. THen resinstall w/ your old COA key and disk. Not *technically* legal, but not pirated! You likely will have to call in during activation, but no biggie. 5 min over phone. (though if you time it right the consumer prices can be better even WITH the OS).

Anyway - get a USB hard drive adapter and hook up your old drive (FYI @ 7yrs old likely IDE not SATA). You may be able to get the data off it.

GL!