Sony Bio Notebook - won't start up

[Londoner]

Hi,

A friend of mine told me over the phone, this evening that their laptop won't start up. It is a Sony Bio Notebook, with a mobile Intel P3, running Windows 2000 Professional - model PCG-3216.

So far as I understand, when they press the start up button it merely goes to the first Sony screen and that's all - it doesn't start up. I asked if any major changes had been made, software installed, etc, but my friend assures me that no unusual activity took place the last time the computer was used.

I advised, over the phone, to press F5/delete while the computer was starting up so that the BIOS could be accessed - we did this but since I don't know the particular BIOS I couldn't help. My friend also can't find their system disk.

Does anyone have any ideas what might be the cause of the problem or what might be done to rectify the problem?

Any and all suggestions, guidance, ideas, are welcome,
thank you for reading.

[Statica]

AFAIK it's F2 to access the Sony BIOS. Check to see if the Hard drive is even detected in the BIOS.

[Londoner]

Thanks for that - I tried talking my friend through the BIOS over the phone but I don't know it, personally, and it sounds quite different to my Gigabyte BIOS - Does anyone know where I could find, online, a guide to this Sony BIOS so I can help my friend? I tried a google and search but nothing so far...

[Statica]

I dont know if your friend is reading off the model number correctly. You can go to http://www.vaio-link.com/manuals/man...&serie=-1&m=-1 to get the manual. There is a locator to help determine the model number as well.
The main entry for Sony VAIO support is: www.vaio-link.com
Addendum: for europe you can go to: http://vaio.sony-europe.com/