Hi All
Have a 2110US Compaq and recently has had trouble booting.
After some troubleshooting I have come to the conclusion that sometimes it just doesn't see the Hard Drive. If it does start, there is no problem, no corruption of data, no hangs, HD functions great. If it doesn't see the HD and there is no boot CD then it tries ( and fails of course ) to boot from network as that is the last option. SMART tests using smartmontools under Linux say the HD is fine. I dismantled the laptop last night, took about 2 hours, what fun! all those tiny little screws! and found nothing visibly wrong with the connector or the board around it. Cleaned up some dust and hair etc. It booted up first time so thought it was fixed, now it's back to not starting about 4 out of 5 tries.
Has been suggested that I upgrade the BIOS, have read on these forums that this is NOT reccomended, Have seen elsewhere that the winflash utility is to blame for that and bootdisks are a better option.
1. Has anyone any ideas on why this is happening?
2. If upgrading the BIOS will help (from KA.MI.30 to KA.MI.60) can I use a USB floppy?
3. If I can't use USB floppy, can anyone tell me how to do a bootable CD?
Have a 2110US Compaq and recently has had trouble booting.
After some troubleshooting I have come to the conclusion that sometimes it just doesn't see the Hard Drive. If it does start, there is no problem, no corruption of data, no hangs, HD functions great. If it doesn't see the HD and there is no boot CD then it tries ( and fails of course ) to boot from network as that is the last option. SMART tests using smartmontools under Linux say the HD is fine. I dismantled the laptop last night, took about 2 hours, what fun! all those tiny little screws! and found nothing visibly wrong with the connector or the board around it. Cleaned up some dust and hair etc. It booted up first time so thought it was fixed, now it's back to not starting about 4 out of 5 tries.
Has been suggested that I upgrade the BIOS, have read on these forums that this is NOT reccomended, Have seen elsewhere that the winflash utility is to blame for that and bootdisks are a better option.
1. Has anyone any ideas on why this is happening?
2. If upgrading the BIOS will help (from KA.MI.30 to KA.MI.60) can I use a USB floppy?
3. If I can't use USB floppy, can anyone tell me how to do a bootable CD?
