Laptop Wont Boot Up

[GTW]

Hi,

i am trying to repair a laptop, problem being... switch on laptop, automaticaly runs scandisk, gets to 85% complete and stalls, messege box appears saying windows is checking for more crosslinked files, after approx 5 minutes gets up 92% complete then goes back to 85% and stays there.

any help would be much appreciated.

Laptop is a Dell Inspiron 500e running windows 98.

[glc]

What happens if you bypass the scandisk?

It has major file system corruption at the least and it probably needs a format and Windows reinstall, at the worst the hard drive needs to be replaced.

[GTW]

When bypass scandisk next screen says; windows found an error in your system files, try deleting some, next page i get blue screen saying invalid VxD dynamic link call, it gives option to continue when doing this eventually get blank screen like the desktop should look however no icons or taskbar present.

[GaryRouth]

See if you can run diagnostics for the hard drive (diagnostics that boot from either a bootable floppy or bootable CD - these are available from the hard drive manufacturer's website, and Dell might have a diagnostic tool in the CD set that comes with the computer). You might want to run diagnostics on the memory,too -since bad memory can be a source of corrupted files too (as can virus infection) [MemTest86 is good for this - http://www.memtest.org ]. If the memory and the drive check out OK physically (passing the diagnostics), then you have a few options: 1) if the customer has good backups, you could run the Dell Recovery disks and then restore the customer's data from the backups (after first scanning them for malware). 2) Try a partial restore, which doesn't wipe the customers data, but only restores the operating system (some Recovery disks offer this option, some don't). Another type of partial restore is the over-the-top reinstallation of Windows 9x (there's a "sticky" thread with all the details in the Tips & Tricks section here at the PC Mechanic forums). If you decide on this, visit Windows Update immediately after for Security Updates, and scan as thoroughly as possible as soon as possible for malware. Have a firewall & antivirus in place whenever connecting to the Internet.

If the hard drive is indeed generating errors on the diagnostics, the good news is that notebook hard drives are much more affordable now: the details on how to replace the hard drive for your Dell are sometimes available by downloading the Dell Maintenance Guide for the series family your model is from. (A few years ago, while under warranty, you'd have Dell service do this for you, of course).


Best of luck
. . . Gary

[P.S. ... just noticed that I rather assumed you were repairing someone else's computer in a business setting -- If this is your own, or a friend's computer, you can just laugh at the spots where I refer to "the customer"... ]