Laptop freezes then reluctant to boot properly

[Dazzer]

I've an HP Omnibook 4150. I've set it up dual boot W2K and XP. This worked fine until I took it through airline security. Now it often won't boot properly. Or if it does boot fully it freezes after a few minutes. The amount of time before it freezes seems to depend on how recently it was last booted. Sometimes it won't even get to the F2 or F10 choices screen, it just keeps trying the DVD drive. It even freezes when going to Safe mode.

Any ideas? Is this a hardware issue, a BIOS or an OS issue? Is it time to get a new laptop?
(I'd give this one away to someone more skilled at resurrecting it, but how'd I erase the hard drive first?)

Dazzer

[mikeL]

I would try re-seating your memory, if it is accessible. Then I would download memtest86, and run it. Might have been rough up going through the TSA's

Mike

[mr_spider3]

if its trying to search for the dvd drive that means your hdd might have been corrupted somehow. does bios pick up the hdd/s. it wouldnt be the ram. there is a bios ram test and if the ram didnt work you would get beeps, alot of them. i believe its 3 beeps and 3 beeps and it keeps going like that. if it keeps trying the dvd drive go into bios on your computer. how to do that when you first boot it up or restart it most computer you push the del key and it brings you to bios and check under one of the option to see if your first boot device is your dvd drive and change it to your hdd. hope this helps.

[Negeva]

With the laptop switched off, try removing the DVD drive and then re-seating it - it might have been knocked loose.

Happens with my laptop; gets knocked about abit in the back of my car and it seems to fix the problem.