Laptop hanging on startup
Discussion
I am trying to rebuild a laptop but im having a problem with it passing a certain stage.
It's a Tiny laptop that is about 3 years old and the current windows installation was running slow and so i wanted to format the drive and start again. Backup up all the data on to a CD and then popped the XP Home CD in the drive and rebooted. I booted from the CD and followed the on screen instructions to delete all partitions (it was just the C drive) and then created two partitions (C for Windows and D for files) i then choose to format C with NTFS and a quick format.
The drive was formatted and the files were copied on to the drive, the laptop then restarted and then tried to go into the next stage which normally brings up a windows screen, but it hangs on the bootup with the scrolling bar at the bottom of an XP sign and doesn't go any further.
I've tried two hard drives and i've changed the RAM over, but it's still doing it. Any ideas as to why this might be happing?
Thanks
dj
It's a Tiny laptop that is about 3 years old and the current windows installation was running slow and so i wanted to format the drive and start again. Backup up all the data on to a CD and then popped the XP Home CD in the drive and rebooted. I booted from the CD and followed the on screen instructions to delete all partitions (it was just the C drive) and then created two partitions (C for Windows and D for files) i then choose to format C with NTFS and a quick format.
The drive was formatted and the files were copied on to the drive, the laptop then restarted and then tried to go into the next stage which normally brings up a windows screen, but it hangs on the bootup with the scrolling bar at the bottom of an XP sign and doesn't go any further.
I've tried two hard drives and i've changed the RAM over, but it's still doing it. Any ideas as to why this might be happing?
Thanks
dj
Ok. Lets ignore Windows for the momment, it's what you want but it's not the worlds best diagnostic platform 
Download Knoppix, or Ubuntu LiveCD's, burn it, boot the laptop from it. If it falls flat on it's face during the graphical boot; reboot and choose the "text" or "safe" mode boot option (i.e. dumps you to a command prompt and during boot the screen will fill with 'gibberish' as it finds hardware and loads drivers). The point where it falls flat on it's face is what we're interested in, report back with what the kernal was saying; but I'd wager good money it's something in the logic board and thus it's dead laptop.
If the LiveCD boots fine and you're left trundling around in Linux, then we're looking at:
1) A peice of hardware that isn't compatible with a generic Windows setup routine (more common than you'd imagine).
2) A peice of hardware that has failed in 'some way' (possible but unlikley).
3) Windows. Sorry, XP/2K's install routines are quite flakey and very easy to push over. Some chipsets that offer TV-Out can do this a lot I've found, it just goes mental.
If you have the actual OEM Windows CD that came with the laptop, try that as opposed to a 'generic', Time might have slipstreamed the needed drivers in to the install. If you don't and Time won't sell you a copy AND Ubuntu is sat there going 'abuse me', give it a whirl.
Download Knoppix, or Ubuntu LiveCD's, burn it, boot the laptop from it. If it falls flat on it's face during the graphical boot; reboot and choose the "text" or "safe" mode boot option (i.e. dumps you to a command prompt and during boot the screen will fill with 'gibberish' as it finds hardware and loads drivers). The point where it falls flat on it's face is what we're interested in, report back with what the kernal was saying; but I'd wager good money it's something in the logic board and thus it's dead laptop.
If the LiveCD boots fine and you're left trundling around in Linux, then we're looking at:
1) A peice of hardware that isn't compatible with a generic Windows setup routine (more common than you'd imagine).
2) A peice of hardware that has failed in 'some way' (possible but unlikley).
3) Windows. Sorry, XP/2K's install routines are quite flakey and very easy to push over. Some chipsets that offer TV-Out can do this a lot I've found, it just goes mental.
If you have the actual OEM Windows CD that came with the laptop, try that as opposed to a 'generic', Time might have slipstreamed the needed drivers in to the install. If you don't and Time won't sell you a copy AND Ubuntu is sat there going 'abuse me', give it a whirl.
ThePassenger said:
Ok. Lets ignore Windows for the momment, it's what you want but it's not the worlds best diagnostic platform
Download Knoppix, or Ubuntu LiveCD's, burn it, boot the laptop from it. If it falls flat on it's face during the graphical boot; reboot and choose the "text" or "safe" mode boot option (i.e. dumps you to a command prompt and during boot the screen will fill with 'gibberish' as it finds hardware and loads drivers). The point where it falls flat on it's face is what we're interested in, report back with what the kernal was saying; but I'd wager good money it's something in the logic board and thus it's dead laptop.
If the LiveCD boots fine and you're left trundling around in Linux, then we're looking at:
1) A peice of hardware that isn't compatible with a generic Windows setup routine (more common than you'd imagine).
2) A peice of hardware that has failed in 'some way' (possible but unlikley).
3) Windows. Sorry, XP/2K's install routines are quite flakey and very easy to push over. Some chipsets that offer TV-Out can do this a lot I've found, it just goes mental.
If you have the actual OEM Windows CD that came with the laptop, try that as opposed to a 'generic', Time might have slipstreamed the needed drivers in to the install. If you don't and Time won't sell you a copy AND Ubuntu is sat there going 'abuse me', give it a whirl.
Thanks for this. I've never played with Ubuntu, so it will be a learning curve too. Will probably take a few days to come back with a report. But will post them up soon. Download Knoppix, or Ubuntu LiveCD's, burn it, boot the laptop from it. If it falls flat on it's face during the graphical boot; reboot and choose the "text" or "safe" mode boot option (i.e. dumps you to a command prompt and during boot the screen will fill with 'gibberish' as it finds hardware and loads drivers). The point where it falls flat on it's face is what we're interested in, report back with what the kernal was saying; but I'd wager good money it's something in the logic board and thus it's dead laptop.
If the LiveCD boots fine and you're left trundling around in Linux, then we're looking at:
1) A peice of hardware that isn't compatible with a generic Windows setup routine (more common than you'd imagine).
2) A peice of hardware that has failed in 'some way' (possible but unlikley).
3) Windows. Sorry, XP/2K's install routines are quite flakey and very easy to push over. Some chipsets that offer TV-Out can do this a lot I've found, it just goes mental.
If you have the actual OEM Windows CD that came with the laptop, try that as opposed to a 'generic', Time might have slipstreamed the needed drivers in to the install. If you don't and Time won't sell you a copy AND Ubuntu is sat there going 'abuse me', give it a whirl.
thanks again.
dj
_Deano said:
Thanks for this. I've never played with Ubuntu, so it will be a learning curve too. Will probably take a few days to come back with a report. But will post them up soon.
No worries DJ, as I said it's more a case of "if it doesn't work, we can see what's gone bang" 
Rather than trying to get the Windows installer to tell us.
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