Yet another laptop issues post.....

Tibia · Post by **Tibia** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 10:29 pm

I have a Compaq Presario 2200 that's been through four or five owners. When I got it, it was so riddled with viruses and spyware it'd shut down after about a minute of use. I cleaned it up and had it functional for a while. It's running Windows XP SP2.

One day, I started getting a BSOD before I even made it all the way into Windows. I don't recall the error message verbatim, but there was some sort of Kernal error involved. I was advised by a computer savy friend that part of the HDD was corrupted, and to reinstall Windows to bypass the bad sectors. I did, and got another few weeks of use before it happened again. I tried to reinstall again, but the message never went away.

Now, I have a different HDD. It's a 10GB ripped from a computer with other issues. I had XP installed on that and it worked for about a week. Then, I got another BSOD, and the computer rebooted itself. Now, all I get is the XP startup screen. It either never gets past that, or the screen goes black with just the pointer in the middle of it.

I tried to go back to the original HDD, and couldn't even get that far. I'm totally at a loss for what to do. I really need to get this laptop working, but all I need it for is word processing and web browsing. Does anyone have any ideas on getting this beast functional?

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Fri Nov 07, 2008 11:20 pm

It kind of sounds like a hardware error (probably not the HDD). I got a new second-hand laptop a week ago, and I unplugged the modem when I took it apart. I reinstalled XP, then took it apart again and plugged the modem back in (don't know why I did). The first boot after that rought up the blue screen, which said something about a hardware driver error, rebooted and hasn't happened again. So it sounds like the same thing is happening to you, except its persistant.
You could try linux, I'd recommend Ubuntu since its pretty much install and go (after you try the liveCD first, of course).

timmeh87 · Post by **timmeh87** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 2:59 am

I wouldn't rule out that a 10gb hard drive is also corrupted.. Must be 6+ years old

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:38 pm

The only problem with linux is that it's terrible.

Check for any possibly loose bits of metal or something in there bouncing around - one tiny short and the motherboard can die.

Also, see if any capacitors are leaking or venting; that would do it.

Tibia · Post by **Tibia** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 1:07 pm

Well, I've experimented with it some more. I've taken it apart, cleaned it, and put it back together. All I did to clean it was use compressed air to get all the dust and stuff off. All connections are good. Caps and other components also look fine, no singes or residue.

The 60gb HDD won't even load on a USB/IDE adapter. I can hear all kinds of entertaining noises, and the device is recognized. No drive ever shows up, either in My Computer or Drive Manager. I'm going to assume that drive's totally dead?

The 10gb HDD loads, and shows up on the Drive Manager as "Healthy". I tried to scan it for errors and bad sectors, but it won't scan. Should I assume this one's gone beyond use as well?

Is switching to Linux really that much of a benefit? I've got three or four legit product keys for XP in addition to the one actually on the sticker for this computer. I can't use Linux on either desktop because my music writing stuff isn't compatible. Will I be able to save stuff in Linux and use it in XP? I know nothing at all about Linux/Ubuntu/whatever. I've only ever used Windows.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Mon Nov 10, 2008 4:21 pm

If the hard drives are the problem (which it sounds like), I'd just get another hard drive and install Windows. The only reason I suggested Linux was if there was some other hardware thing that Windows didn't like.