IBM laptop died, need sugestions

[Soundguy]

Wife has an ibm laptop running xp ( don't know the model.. but it had xp natively on it.. it wasn't an upgraded unit from 98..e tc.. ). She downloaded some email on it about 5pm, and shut it down like normal. she got to work tonight, and started the thing, and it came up to the windoes screen, but the task bar never came up... she got impatient with it and did a hard power off by holding down the power button ( I told her this was probably a bad thing to do, since it was obviously taking extra time to boot for some reason and she should ahve given it more time ).. in any case, now on subsequent boot attempts, the laptop displays either an invalid media notice, please check cable.. or operating system not found / unable to be loaded.

Any ideas on where to go from here?

unit has a floppy drive and a cd /dvd rom.

any advice is appreciated.

soundguy

 

[TedLaRue]

Sounds like the hard drive is failing. The hard drive is a storage media (thus the "invalid media" message). It may almost work sometimes, giving you the "operating system not found" message because it can't correctly read one or more of the Windows files.

You might try pulling the hard drive and putting it back in. It's pretty easy to do that on a laptop.

If that doesn't work, try booting from a boot-CD or a Windows CD if you have one. If that works, try to access the hard drive C: and see what happens.

 

[aczlan]

Sounds like the hard drive is failing.... You might try pulling the hard drive and putting it back in. It's pretty easy to do that on a laptop.

I agree, it is probably: A. a bad harddrive, or B. a bad connection to the harddrive. if it is B removing and reinstalling the harddrive can reseat any loose cables, if it is A, removing and reinstalling the harddrive probbaly wont do any harm.

If that doesn't work, try booting from a boot-CD or a Windows CD if you have one. If that works, try to access the hard drive C: and see what happens.

if you dont have a boot CD or a windows CD, try Ubuntu.com for Ubuntu install CD, this will let you boot up and get into a graphical environment relatively painlessly.

Aaron Z

 

[310-510]

I have seen invalid media / operating system not found when a non bootable floppy disk has been left in the drive. Drove me crazy for a while. And I'm supposed to be a software professional.

 

[Soundguy]

Bingo guys.. just got it fixed. When she got home I started looking it over and sure enough.. the hdd is easilly removable, and was unseated about 1/8 inch.. I pushed it in and clicke dthe little plastic door shut, and it booted ont he 1st try. ( i still performed a full backup though.. just in case..!! I just got done with the backup.. )

Thanks

score one more for the TBN tech support team.

soundguy

 

[MossRoad]

Bingo guys.. just got it fixed. When she got home I started looking it over and sure enough.. the hdd is easilly removable, and was unseated about 1/8 inch.. I pushed it in and clicke dthe little plastic door shut, and it booted ont he 1st try. ( i still performed a full backup though.. just in case..!! I just got done with the backup.. )

Thanks

score one more for the TBN tech support team.

soundguy

Glad you found it. I hate laptop hard drives that can pop out like that. IBM and old NECs are famous for that. I'm surprised it isn't held in place with a screw.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Gotta love an easy fix!
Had a dell that had to have motherboard replaced twice, fortunately still under warrenty.
And hang onto that XP OS.

 

[Soundguy]

Yep.. not looking forward to vista!

soundguy

 

[Timber]

I happen to like vista but if it were me I would hold out for Microsoft 7, Now I will have another operating system to figure out, LOL

 

[Soundguy]

When is 7 'slated' to come out?

soundguy