Major Issues and I need serious help

I have a compaq laptop running vista if that helps.


Yesterday I woke up to the blue screen of death. The only options I got in the startup menu were repair and start normally. Repair typically bringing me my arrow on a black screen and start normally endlessly bringing me back to the same question page. I asked on yahoo and got an answer to download the vista recovery disk. For the longest time I just got a blinking underscore but later found out that if I pressed f12 I could make it start from the cd drive. I did and using the this method went through the repair although it took a long time. It asked me to load drivers and I saw my disk drive contain something called recovery but it said the folder was empty. I just hit next and picked some option with repair in the name and after waiting at least an hour it two (I went for a walk cause it said it would take long) I hit finish and it started up. Got a lot of error messages but expected that and wanted to run my antivirus scanners. I saw they were totally unresponsive going on forever and not scanning more items but just counting time so I shut it off thinking it would now work. I turned it back on without the cd in and I got an error in the startup options about not being able to find boot drive or boot disk or something like that. (I'm sorry I do quite a bit of paraphrasing but I'm not on that computer) and I thought oh no setting to run from the cd instead of the hardrive that one time doesn't mean it ignores the hardrive altogether now does it? So with cd in it says windows is loading files and then just brings me to mouse on a black screen.

This was what I posted on yahoo yesterday. Someone there said this was a better place to ask so I'm trusting that. I appreciate any help anyone can give me. I'm at a point of even being fine to totall start my computer over (even though it's not my most favorite idea in the world) so long as I don't have to buy anything new. I'm also 14 and unable to call tech support because I can't pay them.

 

Hi,

If you boot from the CD using f12 can you get to this screen with the options? (link is for win7 but vista/win7 options are the same) http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/What-are-the-system-recovery-options-in-Windows-7

Try choosing command prompt and typing in chkdsk c: /r to check for file system errors first. Then reboot and see if any difference.

If no difference then I would try booting from the CD again and selecting System Restore to see if there are any restore points available.

 

Thanks so much for the reply but I'm afraid it didn't help much. It seems to only boot from the cd as whenever I have it out it says there's no bootable drive. Hitting f12 didn't change anything either. I just end up with the windows is loading files white bar and get to a black screen with the mouse that doesn't clear up. So I couldn't try any of your later mentioned options.

 

So with the CD in the drive and hitting F12 during the HP screen and choosing CD from the list you still stall on a black screen with the white mouse cursor?

 

Post your model number of laptop from the tag on the bottom. If you can't boot from the CD it might be best to explore the back to factory options sometimes you don't have to lose all your settings, we can check the manual for what is available.

 

I can't choose cd because I don't get a menu it just goes to windows is loading files and after that a cursor on a black screen. I don't have an hp screen i have compaq and windows. My model no is (hoping I found the right one) 2CE841343J. Thanks for your continued help.

 

@Sach2--Correct me if I'm wrong but could the boot sequence in the BIOS have been switched so that the first is CD/DVD Drive? If so could you just set your HD as first then it should boot from your HD not ur CD????

 

Thanks to everyone for their continued support. It was set to boot from cd drive and I switched it. Still f12 did nothing but the windows is loading files white bar and bring me to the cursor on a black screen. Using f2 however I saw that it said my hard drive doesn't exist. I'm almost about to buy a new hardrive after I get a few more opinions and I'm starting to accept this could've been a hard drive crash that set this into motion a week ago. I'm just not so sure if I believe the hard drive doesn't exist because the first day this problem happened I used the disk and got to the black screen with a cursor on it, it eventually turned blue, gave me a menu, and after I finished whatever option that was I got back to my normal computer and tried running scans. But everything was slow and unresponsive so I turned it off again and couldn't get back in since then. So I still think there's a way to get back to how it used to be.

 

Hi, sorry I've had a busy couple of days.

That compaq model number doesn't seem to help. Just give whatever model you see on the laptop. Like DV6000 or such. I just want to see what F2, F8 and F10 should bring up in the manual.

I'm still a bit confused on what happens with no CD in the drive.
Is it:
No CD= No operating system/ boot device found?
With CD=You hit a key when you see "Press any key to boot from CD" then see Windows is loading files and then stalls on a black screen with cursor? Is this the second picture the loading files screen you see?

 

Model number might be CQ50130US, I thought i had found it before.

With no CD I get a message that says no bootable device. With cd it usually starts. If I have no CD it will say insert CD and press any key. Then it happens almost as you said. I do have that picture before it stops on the cursor on the black screen. The first day when I almost got it fixed I got some of the later screens but didn't go through all of those options. Now it just stops on black.

Thanks for all the help, can tell you guys know a lot more, and I'm sure my descriptions are kind of vague. Don't worry about being busy, it's not your responsibility to help me, and I understand time differences and all that, and I came to a forum to get all different opinions

 

That model number helps.

With no CD try hitting F8 during the Compaq splash screen to see if you get any repair options. Basically, the same ones you first saw when the computer started acting up.

If no options there then try F10 and go to the diagnostics menu and try testing the HD. That should tell you if the HD is OK. (I think the HD is OK but the boot sector telling Vista where to start is messed up.)

Finally, you could try F11 to see if you have a recovery partition. (Warning: this option erases everything on the HD and sets the laptop back to Factory Defaults. All personal data is lost.) If you try the F11 option you do not have to commit to the factory restore--you can cancel it. I think you should go through the first couple of screens to see if it is an option.

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I realize you don't want to do a factory restore but I'm trying to figure out your options. I'm not sure why your recovery CD is not loading all the way. Without that CD working your options are limited. There is a possibility of using a Linux CD to copy important personal files to a USB thumb drive before doing a factory restore so you may want to consider that.

 

I tried everything you suggested. Without the cd f8 does nothing, f10 diagnostic test tells me I don't have a hardrvie but I still think i do cause I almost fixed it that one day, and f11 brings me to a screen that says there's no boot device so I tried putting the disk in then and it still stayed on that sceen. I'm not sure why the recovery disk isn't working either unless maybe it's a 32 bit on a 64 bit. I'm going out now but when I get back later I'll try to burn another disk if I can find another recovery disk download.

 

It could be possible that the hard drive connector is loose. Can you open up the hard drive bay and make sure the power and data cables are both still connected?

 

I agree with Wyatt_Earp the connection for the HD could be loose. (I was reading no boot drive found as no system disk found. That would be an OS problem. If it is saying no HD found then that is likely a bad connection or a completely dead drive.)

 

Checking if the connectors are loose isn't an option I want to pass up. I don't confirm or deny that it crashed since I got in once but I really could believe a crash set this all into motion. I still will try another recovery disk just to be sure. Till then I've never tried opening up my computer before and sounds like a way I could totally ruin it. Do you have any tips for the best way I should go about doing this?

 

Just to let you guys no before I check in for the night it isn't working any better trying another recovery disk, maybe a little faster, but still stalling at the same spot. I mentioned my plan to check the connecter with my dad and said he'd better take a look at it. He thought it was dead but I mentioned what made us all believe it wasn't quite dead ,yet. He's had to change hardrives out THRICE!!! on some dell laptops, *rolls eyes* ,god those were unreliable.

 

Take a look at this guide http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01572022.pdf page 51 for HD removal instructions (fairly simple). You just want to remove the HD and reseat it. You don't have to remove it from the caddy.

One thing you might try if reseating the HD does not work and BIOS still refuses to see the drive is remove the HD and then try to boot the recovery CD. See if the recovery CD will completely boot up without hanging. Of course you can't do any repairs but it might tell you if a problem with the HD is causing the CD not to boot properly. If it boots without the HD, then replacing the HD is probably the next step (though you will have to consider whether you have full recovery CDs to reinstall the OS on a new HD and whether or not the CDs will work on a non-HP drive--some HP recovery CDs apparently only work on HDs ordered from them--from what I have read).

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One other option just to see if it boots OK from a CD is to download a small Linux CD like Parted Magic. The CD won't have any recovery options that are particularly useful. If the HD is not recognized in BIOS then no OS will see it. Booting from it will just tell you that the laptop is still functioning with/without the HD being recognized.

 

I took a look at it last night with my dad. We took it out and put it back in, made sure it was connected, tightened the wire, and used some alcohol t remove a small bit of rust on some parts that led us to believe it could have overheated.

I saw that I still couldn't pick the hard drive to boot from with f9. It stalled on the same spot too. I waited half an hour and it still stayed on a black screen.
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Thanks for all the help but I think I can now safely announce my hard drive as dead.

 

Sounds like you tried all that you could with that HD.

If you suspect overheating you might try it without the HD connected to make sure the laptop will still boot from CD. With no HD the CD should get past the black screen if the HD was the only problem.