I need help guys!!!

[Geekling]

Well...actually my cousin does. She has a HP Pavilion ze5185 laptop and its starting to screw up on her. When she goes to boot the laptop it loads just fine till it gets to the Blue Windows XP screen. Then it just stops. What could be causing this? Better yet what could I do to fix this? She really doesn't want to reformat. She has a lot of pics of her newborn son on there that she wants to keep. Any help would be much appreciated.

I also posted this in the laptop section. But I wasn't getting any response so I thought I would try it here.

 

[Fresh Daemon]

Does it boot in safe mode (hit F8 as it starts up)?

 

[Geekling]

It does...but it stops at the same screen. The only difference is it says SAFE MODE in the corners.

 

[Tbirdkid]

as its booting press and hold insert... that will tell you pretty much if its a driver issue

 

[Geekling]

Alright...I held insert and it did the same thing. What does that mean?

 

[Tbirdkid]

It means it is probably a hardware issue then or a bad windows install... do you have the windows cd? if so, try reinstalling windows.

 

[MrChad]

My advice is to create a Bart's PE CD and have a flash drive ready. Insert the flash drive into the laptop and boot using the Bart's PE CD. Hopefully, you will be able to access her hard drive and backup her pictures and other essential files.

You can add a virus scanner and spyware scanner when you create her Bart's PE CD. Do this, and run both on her PC. Failing that, it's going to be tough to diagnose if it doesn't boot into safe mode. It very well may be a hardware issue.

Once you've backed up her files and scanned for viruses and spyware, report back here and we can go from there.

 

[Geekling]

I downloaded Bart's PE and I'm currently trying to make a CD. But what happens if she isn't sure about the path to windows? and the directorys files and folders?

 

[ITJunkie]

According to the screen shots, it looks like Bart's comes with a file manager that you should be able to poke around in until you find the folder(s) you/she needs. Run Bart's and see what happens.

 

[Geekling]

When I load BART PE it takes me directly to a burn screen. Asking me for my windows path and so on. I put my windows path in and it tells me its invalid. I can't load it on the laptop. It won't let me burn the CD without a valid path???

 

[rasczak]

this worked wonders for me,

take a linux live cd, run it and you cna poke around for your files that way.

i saved 2000 pix last week when i had the same problem and couldn't boot into windows.

good luck

 

[MrChad]

Originally posted by: Geekling
When I load BART PE it takes me directly to a burn screen. Asking me for my windows path and so on. I put my windows path in and it tells me its invalid. I can't load it on the laptop. It won't let me burn the CD without a valid path???

Did you follow the instructions? You need to point it to your Windows CD path.

1. Download the latest self-installing package of PE Builder and install it. See the Download section on this page.

2. Start PE Builder (pebuilder.exe). At the main PE Builder dialog, enter the source path to your original Windows XP/2003 Installation/Setup CD. You can use the "..." button to navigate. If your Windows XP is not integrated with service pack 1 or 2, you must slipstream your files first.
Please read Slipstreaming files from the help files to do this.

3. At the main PE Builder dialog, enable the "Create ISO image" and "Burn to CD" option. Select your CD writer device from the Device listbox.
If you use a CDRW media, also check the "Erase CDRW" option.

4. At the main PE Builder dialog, hit the "build" button (or press F7). PE Builder will now ask you to create a directory, answer with "yes".

5. The license for your Windows XP/2003 product is shown. Read it and agree to it to continue.

6. PE Builder will now start building BartPE. This will take a few minutes.
You will see a lot of files getting copied and/or decompressed, the ISO image build and the data recorded to your CD writer.
While burning to your CD writer you will not see any screen changes, just wait for it to finish...

7. When burned OK, boot from the CD!

 

[eXx08]

Wrong forum, go to the Laptop Forums...

 

[Geekling]

Alright. I have Freebsd live CD working. But I'm not sure how to use it. Would anyone like to give me some advice?

 

[Fresh Daemon]

No, not FreeBSD. You'll find very little support for that. Go get Knoppix, Slax, Ubuntu Live or something. I like Knoppix myself.

Edit: Before I get flamed, I meant that there are not nearly as many *BSD-savvy people posting as Linux-savvy people. That's all.

 

[Geekling]

Alright. I'm downloading Knoppix. Its a big file tho. Its going to take some time

 

[imported_Phil]

Bart's PE disc will be a lot easier for less-computer-literate (no offence) folks, because it's Windows, running from a CD.

 

[Geekling]

I have Ubuntu Live. I have it working. But how do I find the windows files? All I see are the linux files on the CD.