Laptop starts and then stops!! Help!

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CMK

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A friend of mine bought a 2 yr old laptop from me. Last week it broke down and now when you start it, it crashes after about 5 min without allowing you to do run any recovery programs. We need advise on how to get the laptop up and running again without problems? It is not crucial that the data on laptop is saved so we do have the option of formatting the hard disk but we don't know how to do this. Can anyone help or give me advise??

Just to add my friend used the recovery disk supplied with laptop to no avail.

Thanks
 
This was originally posted in the forum!

If it was working fine for you then what happened in the meantime - e.g. was it dropped, reinstalled, new software or hardware installed, configuration changes made etc.? When it crashes precisely what happens (including error messages that might appear)? Has it been reinstalled from scratch from original installation media (a reinstall will allow the option of a reformat)?
 
Its either hardware or software. If its hardware you need to get it fixed, if its software then you'll need to try and identify what SW it is. It might be an incompatible version with the OS.

When you say crash, are you getting the BSOD? Whats the OS? Try using [broken link removed] as a quick method of getting rid of startup programs, reboot, then if the OS still crashes, Id use [broken link removed] and as soon as the laptop boots(and obviously before it crashes), go in and start killing any other processes. This all a bit trial and error but it may be the only way to see what SW is causing the crashes.
 
The OS is Windows XP.

When it crashes, the blue screen of death appears with information that means nothing to me. Then the laptop resarts and crashes again and so on.

Using [broken link removed] or [broken link removed] is good idea but how can we install the software. The laptop is likely to crash before it we can do anything. For example, I tried to access the conttrol panel, which was open for about 30 seconds and then the laptop crashed.

The only repairs we have tried to carried out is to start the PC with recovery disks - either the recovery disk supplied with the laptop or with the latest version of Norton Internet Security.

No hardware has been added, no configuration changes have been made. As for being the possibility that laptop might have dropped, well my friend never mentioned any such occurrence and it didn't appear to me to have been physically damaged, I think we can assume that it has not.

The only new software installed since he bought it from me was the latest version of Norton Internet Security (an older version was installed when my friend bought the laptop from me).

How can we reinstall (I assume you mean Windows XP)? As I said already, the laptop crashes before you get a chance to anything meaningful.
 
can you get startupcpl on to a disk or USB key, have it on a disk or USB key, boot the laptop, click start run and whatever the startupcpl install exe is, its small enough, then upon next boot, go straight into it in control panel and disable all startup programs. Again, all a bit trial and error but I dont know what else to suggest. hmm, Im sure I heard there was a way you could start windows XP without running startup programs but not sure how to do it.
Try F8 on boot and select basic boot. Think thats it.
 
If above fails, enter the BIOS setup( by pressing F2 at a certain time in the boot up process) and try booting up in safe mode. This will hopefully give you your desktop back but no abilty to install new programs. Try running system restore from here to a date where your system did work.
It is not crucial that the data on laptop is saved so we do have the option of formatting the hard disk but we don't know how to do this.
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To do this you need to boot up the laptop with the recovery disk that was shipped with the laptop and follow the instructions. It will reset the laptop to factory condition. Make sure in your bootup sequence the cd drive is before the hard drive. Again in the BIOS set up.
 
CMK said:
How can we reinstall (I assume you mean Windows XP)?
Click to expand...
One thing to try first is to boot off some other bootable medium - e.g. a DOS floppy, a bootable CD or a live bootable CD version of GNU/Linux such as Kanotix - and see if the laptop still acts unreliably. If it does then chances are it's a hardware problem, if it doesn't then it's probably a software problem. If it's the former then reinstalling may not help. If it's the latter then try booting into XP safe mode as explained above and try repairing the installation and/or roll back to an earlier System Restore point etc. If you do end up having to reinstall then you need a licensed, original installation CD for XP, boot off that and follow the installation instructions.
 
thanks for all your replies. I have passed the replies to my friend and it looks like they are on the way to have it working again.

Cheers
 
Perhaps you/they could post back with a description of what was wrong and how it was rectified so that others can learn from the experience?
 
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