Old Optimus spontaneously died - what do you suggest?

[PlainSnailing]

My Optimus II has been slowly struggling on for the last two months, yet up until this point I had kept it going. Earlier today when it was seemingly working fine, a ticking sound from the bottom-right portion of the base started. Within seconds I got a bluescreen and the whole computer went dark.

When I boot it up, it brings up a black screen that says something about a failure to detect an ethernet cable, and that I need to insert media into the correct boot drive.

My guess is that the hard drive has only now decided to die on me, but I don't know what I can do to fix it, if at all.

 

[steaky360]

Is it possible to find out exactly what its saying? I've never heard of a computer not starting because of a failure to detect an Ethernet cable. If the HDD had failed, it would say failure to detect the HDD or some other HDD related issue, not Ethernet

 

[DeadEyeDuk]

Old Optimus spontaneously died - what do you suggest?

Computers are tricky things, even more so laptops. I am sure someone on the boards will be able to offer some idea of at least what might be happening, but of course PCS may be...

[PCS MC Device Enabled] I.Suggest.You.Buy.A.New.One.From.The.Wide.Range.Of.Laptops.Available.From.PCSpeacialst..Com [Device Disabled]

...able to give you a better idea over the phone for starters. Hope you get it sorted!

 

[PlainSnailing]

Is it possible to find out exactly what its saying? I've never heard of a computer not starting because of a failure to detect an Ethernet cable. If the HDD had failed, it would say failure to detect the HDD or some other HDD related issue, not Ethernet

Most of its a befuddling mixture of characters, but what could be made out was "no ethernet detected… failure" and then "ready boot device".

I added the ellipsis, because for a few months now the screen has been damaged and I've needed to run the laptop theough an old monitor. The first tenth or so of the screen has been cropped out by the device having a wonky resolution setting that flickers about before setting itself to the standard 1920x1080. Only as it isn't loading windows at the moment, its stuck on some unusual resolution that is cutting the text out.

I don't know what the error is, but I fear that it may have just wiped itself.

 

[mantadog]

Ticking sound then an almost immediate blue screen sounds like a catastrophic HDD failure to me which is not going to be fixable bar installing a new one.

 

[PLAYDODGY]

Iwould afree new hdd needed,

 

[ubuysa]

Yup, sounds like hard drive. You could try booting the Windows install DVD, select repair and see whether you can access the hard drive from there. If the disk boots ok and you can navigate around the repair options then the rest of the laptop is probably fine.

Rule #1: Never ignore a computer that's "struggling", problems rarely get better on their own. If you'd acted earlier you could have saved your data.

 

[mantadog]

Rule #1: Never ignore a computer that's "struggling", problems rarely get better on their own. If you'd acted earlier you could have saved your data.

good advice for everyone that is...#

we had a laptop fail yesterday, been getting worse and worse for a couple of months until yesterday when it just died. No big deal though as it was backed up but even small problems can transform into huge issues if not mitigated quickly.

 

[ubuysa]

Yup, sounds like hard drive. You could try booting the Windows install DVD, select repair and see whether you can access the hard drive from there. If the disk boots ok and you can navigate around the repair options then the rest of the laptop is probably fine.

Rule #1: Never ignore a computer that's "struggling", problems rarely get better on their own. If you'd acted earlier you could have saved your data.

Is it legal to quote your own post?

I just had a thought; if you can boot the WIndows installation DVD, choose the Repair option, open up a command prompt and enter the command "chkdsk c: /f" (without the quotes) assuming that C: is your boot drive (if not substitute whatever drive letter is appropriate). That will do a filesystem check on your disk, there's a chance it's just a glitch in the filesystem (which chkdsk may be able to repair) rather than a trashed disk. It's worth a try in any case.

 

[DeadEyeDuk]

Is it legal to quote your own post?

No










:surrender:

 

[PlainSnailing]

Is it legal to quote your own post?

I just had a thought; if you can boot the WIndows installation DVD, choose the Repair option, open up a command prompt and enter the command "chkdsk c: /f" (without the quotes) assuming that C: is your boot drive (if not substitute whatever drive letter is appropriate). That will do a filesystem check on your disk, there's a chance it's just a glitch in the filesystem (which chkdsk may be able to repair) rather than a trashed disk. It's worth a try in any case.

A tiny problem: I no longer possess my copy of Windows. I gave it to a friend to use one of my licences, and she lost it. I'm weighing-up whether ordering a replacement hard drive or a fresh copy of Windows would be cheaper. Knowing Microsoft's prices, its probably the hard drive.

 

[keynes]

No







:surrender:

Not as bad as a 3rd person reference, Keynes said.

 

[ubuysa]

No










:surrender: