Laptop wont boot

[roreydo]

It turns on and comes to the screen that says Windows did not start successfully and wants you to choose safe mode, safe mode with networking and so forth. Anyway no matter what setting you choose nothing happens. A few things will pop up on the bottom of the screen then nothing.....I thought about using recovery console to write a new boot sector but not sure what exactly that will do. The laptop has some very important stuff on it that I really dont want to loose.

Any advice??

TIA

[rjfvillarosa]

Can you tell us what make and model of laptop it is and what version of Windows is it running?

[roreydo]

Oops....

Dell Inspiron 5100
Windows XP Home

[rjfvillarosa]

Have you had any problems with the battery or electrical problems in your house that could have caused a spike and blown something?
Have you got the Dell diagnostics loaded on it?

[roreydo]

No not that Im aware of. I dont have the Dell diag software on there. I used chkdsk from the recovery console and it said it found muliple problems on the disk. Any ideas?? Thanks

If I replace the boot sector will that screw something up if thats not the problem?

[rjfvillarosa]

Originally Posted by roreydo If I replace the boot sector will that screw something up if thats not the problem?

Don't go there yet lets try some diagnostics first.
Do you know what make of harddrive is in it?
Do you have access to a machine with a CD burner and internet access?

[roreydo]

I'm not sure what brand of harddrive it is and yes my desktop still functions. Thanks for your time!

[rjfvillarosa]

Go here http://www.ultimatebootcd.com and download the ISO file of ultimate boot cd, make a bootable CD from the ISO using your burning software, change the boot order on the laptop to boot from the CD first and boot it up from that CD, this will take you to a welcome screen with a number of diagnostic tools available to you.
You will have access to Memtest to test the system ram and various harddrive diagnostic testers, if you run one of them it should tell you the make of the harddrive and you can either then carry on with the test or try the correct tester for your make of harddrive.
I believe the new version of UBCD has the Hitachi diagnostic tool on it now and you can use that one for almost any harddrive.

[roreydo]

I'll download it and give it a try. My internet is slow so it will be moring before the download is complete. Thanks again.

[glc]

If chkdsk found multiple problems on the disk, you have a failing hard drive and you need to get your data off NOW. Remove the hard drive and install it on another computer using an adapter to do it. This one below is the easiest way to do this:

http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?inv...-25-35&cat=HDD