I was wondering if someone could help me...

[Crescent Pulsar R]

My sister came to me with someone's laptop, saying there's a problem with it. It doesn't make it to the login screen, and remains a black screen. She used the term "freeze", but I wouldn't know if that's the right term since the cursor is available and can be moved. When I tried to start it in safe mode, the same thing happened.

My knowledge of this stuff is limited, and my first guess would be some kind of virus as opposed to something going wrong with the hardware; even for a laptop. I mean, if it appears to work until just prior to getting to the Windows software, I'm less inclined to think that it's a hardware problem.

So, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on what the possible problem could be, and what else I can do to explore said possibilities (and, maybe, something to do that might fix whatever problem there is, short of formatting the drive and all).

[Spokavriel]

The #1 reason for that kind of thing is a damaged boot sector. My computer I am using right now has that problem. I just keep my installation disk in and boot from CD. It's better than reinstalling and having the same problem again in a month or few.

[Crescent Pulsar R]

Thanks. Does it matter if the installation disc wasn't the one used to install on the hard drive?

[Spokavriel]

It helps to be the same OS release as is installed. But so long as you don't accidentally install and it should be able to work as long as it isn't say a Business professional install disk trying to boot a home install. There are anti piracy things that go nuts on that from time to time.

[PCHeintz72]

As a note, that cannot really be a damaged boot sector if he can get to the screen that allows him to select safe mode. Were the boot sector bad, the system would not know how to bring that screen up, it would give something like 'No operating system found', or 'no bootstrap loader', or something similar.

It is more likely a corrupted Windows install or boot files, or a corrupted registry.

[Makoto]

It doesn't sound like Crescent Pulsar's getting the option screen - probably just attempting to hold F8 or whatever the necessary key is while or just after the BIOS logo screen appears (assuming that IS appearing), and getting nothing.

One thing to try would be to get a Linux LiveCD image and burn that to a CD or make a bootable USB and see if the system still boots from either of those. If it does, then you can start narrowing down what the problem might be.

If you have the original Windows CD/DVDs for that version of Windows (not sure about any OEM discs that might have been included with the laptop), and they're at least XP or greater, you can try booting from those and running the recovery console/etc.

[PCHeintz72]

Windows 2000 CD install also will boot, though its tools are more limited.

EDIT:

Do we know if the person had anything that they needed off the thing. If not, and they have their boot cd. It would be better simply to wipe the system and do a reset.

If it was a OEM Windows CD, then to do a reset, you will also need the drivers... Toshiba, HP, and most notebook makers make the drivers available on their site.

If it was a full recovery CD, you merely need to load that in, and if it has the option, format the drive.

[Anchoku]

Don't do anything irreversible until after retrieving all of her personal files like e-mail, bookmarks, and things she's written. If you can find a local person who's a little more knowlegeable, ask them to try to take the hard drive out and dock it to a working PC through a USB adapter (or something similar) and back up all the personal information. If a backup is successful, then the person can see what's wrong with it and fix or replace the drive. Stuff like this happens. Sometimes it will never happen on a PC no matter how old it is. Other times, it happens right out of the box. The average life they quote on warranties and hardware specifications isn't the same as minimum life, which is often zero.

Good luck with the repairs. I hope it doesn't cost too much.