My friend has a laptop and she asked me to fix. I turned it on and everything seem like it is fine and it brought me to the Log On to Windows screen. I hit enter and it started to load and logs me off so I assume there is a virus that causing the windows login to loop. I found information to fix that problem using BartPE Boot CD. I made a boot CD but the problem I am having is locating the C drive. I was wondering for awhile how come I can't find the C drive so I decided to pop my windows xp CD in and see if I can see the C drive but it says that there is no current drive available to partition and format. Just say if an hard drive is bad and unable to detect from windows setup when you boot from CD shouldn't that mean the HD wouldn't be able to boot up? But then again it loaded all the way to the screen where I can enter user name and password to log into the desktop. I would like to ask if anyone had a problem like this before. Also the laptop bios has a password and I can't figure out what the password would be. What is the best and safest way to reset the password? Any information would help. Thanks a lot guys!
You would have to download the hard drive diagnostic utility from the manufacturer and run a diagnostic on the hard drive. If there is errors, the utility should fix the problem. Thats the first thing I would do. Try booting in safe mode and see if it loads correctly. If all else fails then you may need to do a repair install of the operating system.
I went into the bios and it has diagnostic utility for the hard drive. Everything was fine and there was no errors. I tried rebooting in safe mode but it wouldn't let me get on desktop because it has the Windows XP Login and Logout Loop (virus). Not sure if you heard of that virus before but when you try to log in it will load up your settings and then logs you off. If the diagnostic utility shows no problems of the hard drive I assume the hard drive is still there so I used a windows cd and do what I always do to reinstall the operating system and it tells me no hard disk was found and setup cannot continue. That is the odd part about this issue I am having. I was wondering if anyone ever bump into this problem before. If anyone did any information would help. Thanks again
If no hard drive was found most likely they have AHCI configured in bios and the install cd won't recognize the drive until you install the driver for the sata controller. Did the laptop come with a recovery partition that manufacturer put on to recover the laptop when it crashed? You might want to contact the company first.
I think this notebook is out of warranty. A friend bought this from one of the black friday deals. She told me there was no recovery CD that came with it but I think she doesn't know what she was talking about and have no clue what these CD are that I am asking for. I was curious if there is a way I can obtain these drivers from somewhere and install it throught command prompt so I can continue reinstalling the OS. I don't get why HP have to make things so complicated and it seem like it was made to ONLY use their software to fix it. I really appreciated the help. If you know somewhere I can obtain this recovery CD instead paying HP for it or maybe install the drivers myself instead of contacting the company and have them charge me a certain amount of money because it is out of warranty to tell me some BS. Every bit of information you provide me would are very helpful. Thanks
If you or anyone you know are not that computer savvy enough to work on the laptop then I would recommend taking it in to a computer repair shop and ask them to get it working for you.
If this doesn't require opening up the laptop I should be fine with it. I searched up about the AHCI Drivers after reading your previous post. I found the drivers from HP website but that driver that is found on the HP website is for creating a diskette so would it be possible to run command prompt in safemode and load that file into a USB stick or a CD and install the drivers from there?
The only thing I don't get is that how is the laptop still have windows running and windows xp splash screen still there loading up to the login screen for someone to log in but yet the hard drive is not detected. Normally if the HD is not detect it will say something like fail disk error or something similar to it.
If you know how to install the AHCI drivers in command prompt or somehow without getting into windows that would be great. If you're not sure a way to do it that is fine. You been a great help giving me these information. That is a step ahead from what I thought was going on. I was planning to get another HD from work and try it out and see what happens. Thanks a bunch
Without having a floppy drive to install the sata controller driver you would have to slipstream the driver into a new install cd. Thats why I asked if you had either a recovery cd from the laptop manufacturer or a system recovery partition that is hidden on the hard drive to actually recover the system. If you have the owners manual for this laptop read its documentation on how to recover the operating system. If you lived near Chicago Illinois I could get it going again for you but you are probably not. What brand and model laptop is it?
Oops, just reread your post and you said it was an HP. Give me the model number of the laptop though.
at the front top right corner of the screen it says HP Pavilion Dv6000 but on the tag on the back with the serial it say HP Pavilion Dv6103nr so I assume that is the modem of the laptop
The self extracting exe file will create a folder on your c driver under c:\swsetup, which there will be files in this folder required to install the driver. You can use a program called nlite to do this. You would direct nlite to that folder to slipstream the driver. Or the only other thing you can do is order the recovery cd from HP and it will automatically install the driver before installation.
Johnb35, Thanks so much for helping me all this time. I clicked the link and then click download it gave me a page error. I started to press F11 and it had pc recovery so I guess that works. I was going to try the AHCI drivers first but it wouldn't let me download when I click download. So i spammed F11 and PC Recovery Came up. I am creating a PC Recovery Disc now while I have the chance to. Thanks soo much! I really appreciated for all your help.
