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Is my laptop FUBAR?

lozina

lozina

Lifer
Dell Inspiron 8600
Windows XP Pro

Last night I was using my laptop normally and then left the room for awhile. When I returned, there was a BSOD displayed. It said something about kernel thread, unfortunately I did not memorize it. I shut it down and told myself I'll deal with it in the morning.

This morning I am trying the boot the thing and the usual process is I see the DELL splash screen which has some BIOS info, how to enter BIOS setup and this progress bar. Usually this progress bar fills quickly, within maybe 3-4 sec, but now it is taking close to 25 sec.

Then the Windows XP splash screen is displayed with it's little animated progress bar (just glides from left to right repeatedly) and it seems to take as much time as usual but when I expect the desktop to display the screen goes black and the machine reboots. No BSOD, no messages, just reboots. This seems like it could go on forever if I left it there, because it keeps rebooting itself just when the Windows desktop is expected. (Same happens if I choose SAFE MODE)

So then I put in my windows XP setup CD and it loads up top the menu where it asks if you want to enter repair console or install windows. And if I choose either option, it gets to a point where it says on the bottom: "Examining startup environment..." and just sits there. Been sitting on the message for 30 minutes now!

Cliffs:

- laptop got a BSOD
- now it cant boot, just keeps rebooting itself over n over w/out any new BSODs or messages
- tried safe mode, same thing
- tried windows xp setup and it just hangs when i choose repair console or install windows

So, now what? Cant boot, cant repair, cant install.
 
I would download the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility and give that a try, as well as memtest just to rule out the RAM. Sounds like a hardware failure unless it can be proven otherwise.

good luck
 
I have a Knoppix CD and would like to try using it to salvage some files on the HD before it gets worse. I really don't know linux so I am just fumbling around really. I was able to find my windows partition and see the files but I can't do anything with them because I cant get the wireless working in knoppix...

It has some Kwlan utility which I cant figure out for the life of me. I click Scan and I see my company's AP listed so I double click it and it gives me some configuration window but all the WAP stuff is greyed out and I cant edit it. Its like it wont let me use encryption. Any ideas?
 
I think it would be easier, if you have data that you have to retrieve, to simply slave the drive into another PC, using an adapter or a USB enclosure. I've never had much luck backing up data with a Knoppix CD unless you have a secondary drive already attached to the computer in question.
 
I'd back up. . .also, all Dells have a diagnostic disk that will check everything on that thing, I'd download the ISO and run that.
 
well it looks like its the hard drive. I downloaded that dell diagnostic cd you mentioned and it found an error with the hard drive. So I got another hard drive tool specific to the manufacturer which can do detailed test and low level format etc, so i hope it will be able to fix it.

thanks
 
I would suggest not putting critical data on that hard drive as it is bound to fail. I would just swap it out. Pick up a Western Digital Scorpio from Newegg for under $100.
 
agreed, a low-level format is extremely unlikely to fix your problem, the drive itself is failing in all likelihood. Time to invest in a new drive.

good luck
 
Sounds like a bad drive to me. And the reason its taking longer for the dell screen to go is because it is doing a full post. It normally does a quick post unless there was a bad shutdown.
 
Originally posted by: Nocturnal
I would suggest not putting critical data on that hard drive as it is bound to fail. I would just swap it out. Pick up a Western Digital Scorpio from Newegg for under $100.
Click to expand...

Hey I actually bought this drive before I read your post 🙂

Only thing is I wish it were 7200 rpm. What I have now is a 60gb 7200rpm Hitachi TravelStar.

Yeah I will replace it. But I might want to take the lazy route and just clone this drive to a new one if I can
 
But what I did with that manufacturer hard drive tool was run a full test and then it found several cluster errors so I ran the fix and then I was able to boot windows where it was interrupted by a chkdsk and once that was complete it booted into windows fine just the way I last had it.
 
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