XP help: Laptop won't boot

[Reciprocity]

I'm on-site in Singapore and one of my co-workers is having a problem with her laptop. I've emailed our corporate help desk but lord knows when they will actually respond.

It's Thinkpad running XP. When she starts it up she'll get the Thinkpad splash screen, a cursor will appear briefly in the upper corner, then a black screen and nothing else.

I've tried to boot it up in Safe Mode but I'll get as far as it listing off the system driver stuff...it stops at one point...and just sits there.

I don't have access to an XP CD so I can't boot it that way. I would love to create a flash driver recovery disk but all the instructions I've been finding online require that I have the XP CD.

I can get into the bios and safe mode startup options but that's about it. I tried choosing "use last good configuration" but it gets hung up trying to load that up as well.

Any suggestions/ideas/help?

IB get a Mac
IB install Linux
IB pics

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[BacDoc]

Did she travel there too? Reseat everything.

[teesutt]

1. Try removing the battery and doing a hard boot. Hold down the power button for 15 secs w/o the battery in.

2. Remove the ram, swap with yours if its similar. If it boots, you know the problem.

[Qcanfixit]

download a fresh copy of xp from teh intarwebs

[Reciprocity]

The laptop isn't treated all that gently so it's possible something got partially un-seated in there.

I can't get into the case right now though...I don't have anything small enough to loosen any of the screws.

[Reciprocity]

Originally Posted by Qcanfixit

download a fresh copy of xp from teh intarwebs

I could do that...it'll take a while for sure and I don't have any blank CD media but could do some sort of virtual mount of it.

She is leaving tomorrow and has a handful of files she wants to give to the client before she goes. I'd love to just yank the HD out and slap it into another computer but I don't have a PC I can crack open to put that HD into.

This isn't critical...I'm not going to go too crazy trying to resolve this...but it would be great if there was a simple solution.

[Qcanfixit]

thinkpads can boot from flash drives

or ipods...

[skywaffles]

You could put it on a bootable flash drive.

[Reciprocity]

Flash drive I have.

I just don't know what to put on that flash drive to boot the laptop with All the recovery stuff I found says it requires the XP CD. I don't necessarily need to fix XP right now as much as access the files off the HD.

Any suggestions for a tiny OS I can load onto a flash drive to boot an XP laptop and allow me to access files off the HD? I'm guessing some flavor of Linux is going to be the answer.

[teesutt]

theres a recovery program called techie toolkit. it boots via the cd rom and creates a virtual desktop, allowing access to files. you could then move the files to a flash drive.

google it.

[Jessie James]

Originally Posted by teesutt

1. Try removing the battery and doing a hard boot. Hold down the power button for 15 secs w/o the battery in.

FYI - Some computers don't support this, and it will fry the motherboard if you power it on without the battery installed.

[BGPunk2001]

Try plugging your hard drive into her motherboard.



You know what I mean... GIGGITY GIGGITY!!!!!!

[Reciprocity]

I downloaded Damn Small Linux onto a bootable flash drive and was able to get the machine up and running.

However I couldn't figure out how to mount the HDD...Linux n00b here.

It doesn't matter though. She's leaving Thursday and will drop off her laptop at the office on Friday with our tech people.

Thanks for the help though...and that DSL bootable flash drive is pretty damn cool. I've definitely got to play with that more.

[Reciprocity]

Originally Posted by BGPunk2001

Try plugging your hard drive into her motherboard.



You know what I mean... GIGGITY GIGGITY!!!!!!

Incompatible software (although the hardware would work)....aka she is a lesbian.

And not the sexy kind

[BGPunk2001]

**** that ****.