Help!  laptop freezes

[soon2be]

For the Computer gurus.  I have a Compaq 2700 laptop.  The screen froze while I was using it yesterday.  Disconnected the power supply and attempted to reboot.  Now, it is going through the restart process but locking up once it gets to the screen with the XP logo.  Even in safe mode, it locks at the same screen.  I have the windows xp home edition.  I am trying to avoid a full system restore.  I don't seem to have a disc for xp.  If necessary, is there a way to copy it from my desktop?

 

[Wag]

Unplug any other devices you have on the machine, ergo, floppy drives, CD or DVD drives, USB devices, network cards etc. etc. and try it again. USB keychain drives are notorious for causing this kind of thing.

Sounds like some driver is trying to load and isn't succeeding.

--Wag--

 

[DAB]

The link below contains instructions/software for building a bootable CD that can diagnose or repair most Windows problems. However, this isn't for someone who has no experience with the technical aspects of operating systems. If you can't find a simple way of fixing the lockup, you may have to do a full system restore/reinstall.

Ultimate Boot CD for Windows

 

[Revlis]

Unplug any other devices you have on the machine, ergo, floppy drives, CD or DVD drives, USB devices, network cards etc. etc. and try it again. USB keychain drives are notorious for causing this kind of thing.

Sounds like some driver is trying to load and isn't succeeding.

--Wag--

I'm with WAG, I run into it a lot on my Dell Laptop when attempting to re-boot with a couple of USB drives attached. Just don't work. I unplug everything, hot boot it and away it goes. Then plug everything back in and I'm golden.

 

[warbrown]

It's going to be tough without your XP CD or other boot disk, but if the USB suggestion isn't it, you may not have too many choices without Safe-mode. Borrow an XP home CD from someone and boot off of it so you can get to the option to press "r" for the recovery concole. Run the chkdsk /r command and see if it is able to repair any damage that may have occurred when the PC initially locked up. If that doesn't help things, boot from the CD again, press enter to go into setup, then press "r" at the next screen for the repair installation option. This will do an in-place install, retaining your current settings and files, but theoretically replacing or fixing any damaged files that may be causing problems. Use the product key from the sticker on your PC when prompted.

 

[soon2be]

I have two discs. Application/Driver CD and the three disc Restore group. It does not recognize the App/Driv cd. The restore cd's prompt for full system restore which I want to try to avoid if possible. If I continue with the restore, will I be given an option to repair instead of total restoration? By the way, nothing is connected to the usb ports. Is a total restore on the horizon.

 

[soon2be]

The link below contains instructions/software for building a bootable CD that can diagnose or repair most Windows problems. However, this isn't for someone who has no experience with the technical aspects of operating systems. If you can't find a simple way of fixing the lockup, you may have to do a full system restore/reinstall.

Ultimate Boot CD for Windows

I'll check out the site, but if it goes too far in depth, I may abort. Thanks.

 

[Wag]

Give us an update when you've got it working so we know what we need to add to our arsenals of Windows troubleshooting methods.

Windows is the worst virus/trojan horse ever inflicted on computerdom.

--Wag--

 

[TruWrecks]

Yank the hard drive out (Carefully) and have another computer run scandisk on it. Sounds like you may have a file index issue. XP and NT can both get index problems when they don't have a chance to write cached info to the system drive.