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Thread: Laptop looping the loop.

  1. #1
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Laptop looping the loop.

    Just to refresh, my main PC is being rebuilt after last december's disaster but faulty components delayed start. Meantime Ive been using a handy little Dell Inspiron Laptop which is normally very good and fast.
    Saturday I was surfing the 'net with a friend who is looking for a 'Rescue Dog' without success.
    When I tried to start up the dell later in the evening, it just went to start screen showing F2 setup and F 12 diagnostic. Screen stayed up for maybe 10 secs then rebooted and kept on like that.
    I tried al the things you recommended lat year namely Avira rescue, Seatools, F-rescue & UBCD with no result.
    Can it have picked uo a silly virus which makes it do that? I have a full set of Sunbelt, Counterspy, Vipre & Personal Firewall, paid for and registered. Vipre is running all the time inc. e-mails.
    Any thoughts.

    Probably unrelated, I bought another P 4 PC rehash for £50 just to tide me over which I'm using (Excellent quality and what a snip!) and resusciitated another PC P4 on which I'm intending to run Kubuntu open source just to experiment wih. Installation went well but now it too is in a loop!
    That can't be a virus 'cos it's Linux.

    Ah well, I must be your worst nightmare, Steve, Bill, Sterling, Tunz plus all the rest.
    Help if you can?

    docusk

  2. #2
    Extreme Member! BipolarBill's Avatar
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    It's not a virus because you aren't even getting into Windows, Doc. This is a hardware problem. The "Press F2" thing is a BIOS message. The BIOS is a chip on the motherboard that handles basic hardware settings and initiates the boot process *before handing the process off to Windows*. You MUST press F2 and save/exit BIOS setup. Additionally, there is a motherboard battery that provides power so that the BIOS can save settings. If that battery dies, you will get this "loop". You may have to get those batteries replaced. Replacing a laptop battery is a real chore, so be forewarned.

    Doc, are you sure that you are up to the job of being everyone's PC savior? I think that you may be "burning the candle at both ends" here.
    MS MCP, MCSE

  3. #3
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Bill, I am most impressed by your concern. I found it so nice and unexpected to find that someone so far away could consider an old duffer like me!
    You are a nice man and I thank you for that.
    My daughters make the same point from time to time but the stuff on hand at present is all mine! I can get my young friend the Techie, to change the battery no doubt and the other resuscitated one - well it doesn't matter if it drops dead as I only intend messing around with Linux. Gotta keep my brain in trim.
    As for the main PC, well Neil, the techie, will be doing that for me. Too much bending and stretching and, at present, thanks to you my lovely granddaughters are all OK.
    I shall treasure your last paragraph and I do appreciate it. I'll try and take it easy yes?

    docusk

  4. #4
    Mod w/ an attitude Sterling_Aug's Avatar
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    Doc: Try to watch your techie change the battery. It may not be as bad you you think. You might be able to handle it on your own the next time.

  5. #5
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Heh heh Sterling. I should live that long for another new battery!? I'll be there when he does it but only to see he doesn't take any of the other bits from inside!
    JOKE. He's a lovely boy - well young man I suppose, he's thirty plus but I've known him since he was a callow boy.
    I'm delighted with this £50 IBM whatever, just updated to SP 3 and got all the latest updates. I have it in mind for another grandchild when I've done with it.
    Vipre and SPF re-registered and cooking with gas!
    docusk.

  6. #6
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Just a thought. Do you guys EVER sleep? Here it is 4 bells in the afternoon watch (used to be a sailor medic type) and here you are replying to me.
    They breed 'em tough in them there United States.
    docusk

  7. #7
    Mod w/ an attitude Sterling_Aug's Avatar
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    Sleep, sleep...what is that? LOL

  8. #8
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    I’ve missed you all. Apart from my main PC being up the proverbial Swanee and my laptop still looping the loop we’ve had a cold spell here in the UK and my poor old pal Arthur Itis doesn’t like that and I’ve been confined to my armchair and the kitchen for about 2 weeks. Better now.
    So. I have the PC up and (almost) running with a nice Gigabyte MOBO and a superior sort of graphics board. Slight problem was that the IDE ports have to be awarded to my CD-ROM s so I bought a nice Seagate 500 Gb SATA disk with all the bits. 32 Mb cache and something else which I can’t remember Oh yes, 5 year warranty.
    Funny thing. I couldn’t install Vista on that drive, when it said it needed to format the drive, the installation said it couldn’t do it ‘cos the disk was damaged! Not really likely is it, brand new. So I put another SATA disk I had by me and loaded that with XP Pro. All went well so it wasn’t the MOBO so I reconnected the 500 Gb one and installed XP Pro on that. It accepted it but told me there were two partitions already on it so I deleted those and did a quick format then installed XP Pro with no further problem
    I should be able to install Vista Home Premium over that XP Pro shouldn’t I?
    After that I shall partition the drive into, say three partitions.
    I cant’ find my young techie friend he doesn’t answer phones or e-mail so I may have to ask Dell to solve the laptop problem after all. I did look at the innards a bit and all looked OK The on-line manual doesn’t show where the CMOS batt is so I can’t check it and, Sterling, you did say it was a bit tricky so I won’t attempt it.

    Docusk, back on his tootsies again

  9. #9
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    You should plan out your partitions FIRST. Only carve out the amount of space you need for the first partition when doing the XP or Vista install. Leave the rest of the space unallocated.

    I don't know what you mean by install Vista over XP. Do you mean an upgrade? I don't recommend upgrades. A clean install would be better.

  10. #10
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Thanks MK. That's what I really meant. It went like clockwork and put the XL stuff into a separate folder.
    I had intended to use Easeus to partition the drive. Perhaps I should have bought a smaller capacity SATA as there's room for 4 on this MOBO.
    Ah well, done now, have to make the best of it. Still, the Vista seems to be working well. I'll be glad to get it back in use. I shall be delving into the Manual I bought for Vista last summer.

    as ever, thanks MK and all pals on SysOpt.
    docusk.
    ( feeling much better today now!)

  11. #11
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Next stage was to just run with Vista for the first time. But Noooo.
    Up comes the screen msg First. Boot from CD/DVD:
    I pressed enter and
    DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.
    I do that and nothing happens
    pens. What next. I have seen that in the past when there's been HD troubles. This is a new HD
    I have changed the BIOS to boot from HD.
    docusk

  12. #12
    Ultimate Member Ol'Tunzafun's Avatar
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    If the drive is recognized during post, run the Seagate diagnostic on it. It can be found on the UBCD disc in MK's signature. There have been a lot of new Seagates failing lately.

  13. #13
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Oh Tunz. Good on you. During the transfer from bench to floor for permanent station, the hard drive cable must have come adrift as UBCD reports No secondary master (as does the boot sequence now I'm suspicious) Off with the cover and 2 poss. HD faulty or cable has come off. Latter unlikely as the SATA cables click into place. I can't bear another faulty piece of equipment. Fortunately I can test it in an external HD case.
    Back later/
    Thanks again.
    docusk

  14. #14
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    Seagate 1TB drives Failing

    The articles relate to the 7200.11 series drives, including 500GB with firmware SD15-SD19. I even made it a sticky.

  15. #15
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    MK.

    Oh my aching back!
    I took the side off and pushed the SATA cable in, nothing happened.
    Just for curiosity, took the HD end of the SATA cable off and found......
    the power plug was in crooked, must have been pulled sideways when something else was being done.
    Pushed it home and switched on. All went well but I forgot I had now attached the audio amp. The welcome tune for Vista nearly blew my socks off!!!
    I now have my own PC back on the job after almost 2 months. Could have been 6 if not for all you guys.

    From a very happy, slightly more deaf than usual,

    docusk

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