Can't boot Laptop (HELP!!!)

[ranzy]

I transferred some images from my old laptop to my new laptop, using a smart media card. Around ten minutes later the new laptop just shut itself down, and now when switch on won't even boot up. It doesn't even get to point where can switch to safe mode.

I'm presuming there was some kind of virus I was unware of on my old laptop, and this has caused the problem, but as I cant even boot up new laptop is there anyway that this can be fixed.

Would very much appreciate any help, thanks.

 

[PC eye]

Why does everyone automatically assume "VIRUS"??? If you are still under warranty bring the laptop in for service under that. This sounds more like a hardware problem due to a defect on the new unit. What make and model is it? Lately Dell has had a massive recall on the Lithium batteries used on their models.

 

[ranzy]

Sorry, only meant 'new' in context to old one. Has been working fine for the last 2 years. When boots up, it allows you to hit F2, to enter setup - but other than that just goes to a blank screen, saying ''Disk Error, press any key to restart''. But when hit any key it does not do anything.

Laptop is an ACER Travelmate 244LC

 

[PC eye]

If the drive didn't quit on you the partition may have lost some information. With everything seeming normal it sounds like you were overdue for a reformat of the hard drive. Do you have the recovery disk? Hopefully that the simple quick fix option if you are running XP.

When booting from an XP installation cd or even an old 98 or ME floppy, which you probably don't have there, you can use the Fixboot and Fixmbr commands at the recovery console prompt. With the old floppy method you boot off of an old 98 or ME startup floppy and type in "fdisk /mbr" at the dos prompt in the effort there to repair the master boot record.

With a recovery disk you could try a repair install to see that gets you going again without wiping the drive clean followed by creating and formatting a new partition with the installer. If the installer fails at detecting the present partition on the drive it's a good chance that the drive itself went.