New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Help me O great sagerites

post #1 of 17
2/11/04 at 6:14pm
Thread Starter 
My new ..well almost new...8890 is dead! Here is the deal I used it on my way to work it worked great like it always has. I turned it off and when I got to work I tried to turn it back on...and nuttin! Well actually it will post ok and I can get into the bios so I know the screen is working but after it post's the screen goes blank( I can see the back light is on but there is no text or anything on the screen) This is normal and then windows starts usually after a few seconds. Well now it just stays at this blank screen...no hard drive activity no nothing. I can't three finger salute it. Only thing I can do is hold down the power button to turn it off. I have tried resetting the bios to defaut. I made sure it was plugged in...still nuttin. I have had error messages before from windoze but here there is nothing at all. so I don't know if the OS is loading at all. I tried to hold the F8 key but that does nothing either.

If it was a hard drive problem it seems to me it would not post ( I am not running raid I have a single 60 gig hard drive) The ultra controller finds the hard drive ok when it goes trhu the start up process.

Any ideas where to start...I am at work so I will not be home to try much till this weekend. I just thought maybe thru these great forums someone would have a idea.

Thanks guru's
Reply
Reply
post #2 of 17
2/11/04 at 6:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by unpilot
My new ..well almost new...8890 is dead! Here is the deal I used it on my way to work it worked great like it always has. I turned it off and when I got to work I tried to turn it back on...and nuttin! Well actually it will post ok and I can get into the bios so I know the screen is working but after it post's the screen goes blank( I can see the back light is on but there is no text or anything on the screen) This is normal and then windows starts usually after a few seconds. Well now it just stays at this blank screen...no hard drive activity no nothing. I can't three finger salute it. Only thing I can do is hold down the power button to turn it off. I have tried resetting the bios to defaut. I made sure it was plugged in...still nuttin. I have had error messages before from windoze but here there is nothing at all. so I don't know if the OS is loading at all. I tried to hold the F8 key but that does nothing either.

If it was a hard drive problem it seems to me it would not post ( I am not running raid I have a single 60 gig hard drive) The ultra controller finds the hard drive ok when it goes trhu the start up process.

Any ideas where to start...I am at work so I will not be home to try much till this weekend. I just thought maybe thru these great forums someone would have a idea.

Thanks guru's
Try reseating the HDD.
Reply
Reply
post #3 of 17
2/11/04 at 6:31pm
You didn't say which OS. If WinXP try the CD and go into the Recovery Console. After you log on with the Admin Password, type FIXBOOT and FIXMBR. That is a starting point.
Reply
Reply
post #4 of 17
2/11/04 at 7:00pm
What G-Omaha said. I had this happen w/ my Sony VAIO once- worked fine @ home and was DoA @ work. Reseated HDD. Works fine.
Reply
Reply
post #5 of 17
2/11/04 at 7:15pm
Set it on the floor and pour hot coffee on it and leave it there.. a couple days will pass and magic ants will come out of the wood work, crawl inside your dead laptop via the exhaust vent, and short out everything.. now that everything is dead, hit it with a hammer and it will boot and be running 5x faster than ever before.. its magic.. i saw it happen once..

....my ass... yeah, try the hammer thing.. usually works for me..

-Evil Juggalo

"Dont listen to me, im talking out of my ass"
Reply
Reply
post #6 of 17
2/11/04 at 7:52pm
My guess is since you were moving, and it worked before and it gets to POST and you can get into BIOS, and the screen works, its possible the hard drive jiggled loose. Or some other connection.

Do the fans come on?

I'd crack it open and take a look, checking all the connections. But carefully, very, very carefully.
Reply
Reply
post #7 of 17
2/11/04 at 10:17pm
Thread Starter 
I will check the hard drive seating tonight. The thing is I thought that if the controller found the hard drive during the post that it would not be that.

O well I will report back what I find. Thanks all!
Reply
Reply
post #8 of 17
2/11/04 at 11:32pm
You're saying it does find the HDD during post?

Well, good luck. And do let us know what you find out.
Reply
Reply
post #9 of 17
2/12/04 at 1:56pm
Thread Starter 
Ok Here is what I was able to find out so far. Keep in mind I am on the road so I have limited capabilites to explore.

The HDD is found during the post process...I am not running a raid so the ultra promise controler finds and reports the HDD during post. Then the HDD activity lights come on for a bit while the screen is blank...this is what always happens when windows starts to load. It is here that the screen is blank and there is no more activity at this point.

If I disable the HDD in the bios I can then do a ctrl alt delete and restart the post proccess. If I leave the hard drive enabled I can't do that which leaves me to belive that the BIOS is finding everything ok and then handing over control to the OS which for some reason is not loading. I have had OS problems before ...but I usually get some sort of an error message. Here I get nothing at all. I will obviosly try and repair windows when I get home ( I am using XP pro) I installed this myself as I got the machine without an OS.

I did try and reseat the HDD ...it appeared to be connected tightly.

Any other thoughts?
Reply
Reply
post #10 of 17
2/12/04 at 2:21pm
Hmmm... my first thought was a winows update that sneaked in on you (like a video driver update)... but that usually only BSOD's (still tries to load windows); not getting that far, something is up. I'm wondering if the HAL is corrupted or the BIOS needs to be reset (take battery out, hold power button for 20 seconds or whatever the manual says).

Try resetting the BIOS,

-myrkat
Reply
Reply
post #11 of 17
2/13/04 at 11:46am
If you can get a disk only distro (Lindows or Knoppix) you could try booting from the CD and see if that gets you up and running.

Otherwise try booting from the Product Recovery CD (which you probably don't have with you either 'cuz you is on the da road .

Sounds like a windoze driver problem. Can't think of a solution right now .
Reply
Reply
post #12 of 17
2/13/04 at 4:10pm
Thread Starter 
Ya I am pretty sure it is a windoze problem ...when I get home I am gunna try to at least get to a dos promt. Man I hate thinking about a clean install ....again!
Reply
Reply
post #13 of 17
2/13/04 at 9:14pm
Knoppix is a good suggestion. Plus it's pretty slick! It has saved my butt before!

-myrkat
Reply
Reply
post #14 of 17
2/15/04 at 12:33pm
Thread Starter 
WOOT got it fixed!

I had to run the recovery console and fix the MBR. A CHKDSK found errors but did not fix them. Recovery commands fixboot and fixmbr seemed to do the trick.

I wonder if it was a virus that screwed them up or what?
Reply
Reply
post #15 of 17
2/15/04 at 7:25pm
Glad to see you are back on the road dude.
Out of interest how do you start the recovery console (I'm such a noobie at times )?
Reply
Reply
post #16 of 17
2/15/04 at 9:33pm
Thread Starter 
Hey thanks Steve, I have to say I have used your tips a lot!
I could not boot fom my winxp CD so I had a set of floppies that you can get from Microsoft that will allow you to setup xp. One of the options is to run the recovery console. There are a bunch of options once you get into the console. It reminds me of the old DOS days.
Reply
Reply
post #17 of 17
2/16/04 at 2:43am
Thanks for the info on that.
I also found this knowledge base article on the recovery console that may help others.
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home