Compaq CQ57 laptop, stuck at MBR cursor

Well, was handed a pair of laptops by a client and got the first one (HP) upgraded to an SSD (OCZ Vertex 3) and fully functional. That was the easy part.

Then came this Compaq CQ 57. He said it was likely the laptop was dropped, but the kids would not cop to why it stopped working. Could not clone the old drive to an identical Vertex 3, and had no access to it whatsoever, not even frozen (yes, I said frozen, as in "on ice"). Have got a valid copy of Win7, it boots to install no problem, completes install, and restarts. However, it consistently stops at the MBR and just sits there and blinks. Pulled the drive, and hooked it up externally to doublecheck and all the required programming is on the drive. Everything in the BIOS is in order.

Every diagnostic test says that this laptop should have a fully functioning version of Windows, including Windows Startup Repair, and the BIOS hard drive test passes the drive with flying colors.

I'm tempted to flash the BIOS, but only as a last resort because chances are it will most likely be a brick should it fail.

At this point I'm wondering if running Linux from a CD would be this thing's future, or it just may be that only a set of discs from Compaq will be the only way to have a functioning OS.

Any thoughts?

 

Is there only one HD in the machine? Just trying to rule out that it is trying to boot from a storage drive rather than the SSD.

Using the installation disc and choosing Repair does the automatic fix do anything, according to the details when it is finished?

At the command prompt you could try bootrec /fixmbr command to see if it will write a new MBR.

As far as Linux or attached externally, I have found testdisk's MBR Code command to successfully be able to write a Win7 MBR to a HD. You could try that if the installation disc didn't work. I could give instructions if you haven't used that program.

 

Nope, just the SSD on board. I even loaded BIOS defaults for shits and giggles, but that didn't work either.

The automatic fix (Startup Repair) finds no problems. According to all the "standard" evaluations, this hunk o' silicon should be booting Win7, but it won't. It pulled the same stunt when I tried installing Win8 on it. It just sits there and the MBR cursor just blinks.

As far as MBR repair, did try that from the Repair options to no avail.

Do you think it's possible these jokers at Compaq set it up so no other discs but theirs could be used to install the OS on this laptop?

 

I don't think it is possible that a full Win7 disc could be made not to work by Compaq.

I'm trying to remember something relevant. It seems when startup repair finds no problems that it is technically doing an invisible login and it gets a success message. So the Windows installation is probably good. Unfortunately, I can't remember where to go from there.

Maybe from the command prompt try this workaround.

diskpart
select disk 0
list partition (There should be one or two. One tiny System Reserved 99mb and a large say 120gb. Get the number from the large partition (1 or 2) and use it in the next command where I have "1")
select partition 1
active
exit

Now try to boot normally and see if Startup Repair will run automatically and try to fix the error. If it doesn't run then boot from the CD and see if it will run and make any changes. (I'm hoping that it will put a copy of the boot files on the large partition.)

 

Get this.

I had it sitting there with the cursor flashing since my 13:34 post. Out of the blue, it boots and completes the last step of installation. It chose to restart again, and now the cursor is in the upper left corner blinking.

I think I'll sit on it, and play the waiting game with the "ghost in the machine". Maybe if at some point it boots to desktop, a BIOS update could prove fruitful.

What say you?

 

Strange, I've never had the MBR cursor (upper left corner) just suddenly go away.

Is there any other possible boot device it could be waiting on besides the HD and CDROM--like a card reader or USB device?

 

That's the thing, there isn't.

The only two potential devices are the CD-ROM drive which apparently works just fine, and the SSD. All the USB ports are empty, and the BIOS will only disable a device if it's not present. Thinking about that, if there is some issue with the USB hub or a port, and I can't manually disable it due to the simplicity of the BIOS, that may have something to do with it.

I'm getting to be more than reasonably sure this thing hit the floor pretty hard.

It looks like if I give it fifteen minutes, it moves on from the cursor as it just booted Windows to the personalization steps @ 14:08.

Actually, I'm 100% sure this thing hit the floor and the kids ain't copping to it.

 

Something is slowing down it finding the drive or the beginning of the drive. But with two different installations I'm guessing it has written two different bootsectors and MBRs to the very beginning of the drive which should eliminate them as the problem.

So this installation is on the original HD that may or may not have been dropped? I'm not sure what to tell you. You could see how it runs if it completely finishes installation. Whether it has lags etc. HDs in notebooks are usually in there pretty snug so I don't think a loose connection would be the problem. An SSD should have less moving parts. I'm really not sure what to try next.

I just randomly clicked on various sub models of the CQ57 and their BIOS updates, but none seemed to give any information about what they actually addressed/fixed. Not much help there either.

 

Improved capability with other models.

I love how they're so specific with the release notes. I needed a magnifying glass to ferret the license key, but I've got a functioning desktop.

Strictly hibernation, and never actually doing a shut down would probably do the trick. However, restarts could be a problem...