Laptop Stuck On BIOS Load Screen/Won't Load Vista

A

airbusA346

Member
Hi,

Laptop is a Samsung R510 running Vista.

When it is switched on, it gets stuck on the Samsung BIOS load screen. The F2 (Setup) and F4 (Recovery) buttons don't work unless they are pressed straight away. But when they are pressed it says 'Please Wait', but nothing happens.

I have changed the CMOS battery, but it hasn't helped.



I have also just taken the hard drive out of the laptop and connected it to my desktop using an eSATA cable.

It is only showing 69.9GB capacity when it is supposed to be 160GB and has the following folders on the top level:

- 4e5c9397bbd4d4598eeb60f620aaf1
- 85fbd9ca814c5ddc90d34fd60b63
- f0fb83ede1b4f0f5a2
- MSOCache
- SamsungRecovery

So why isn't the rest of the hard drive capacity showing and where has Windows and the user files gone? :(

Can anyone help?
 
spirit

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
I'm not sure if this is correct or not, so bear with me, but this may be down to a bad hard drive. I would get all the files you can off it and then run a disk checker program on it to make sure that there are no bad sectors.

You can find a list of disk checkers here: http://www.computerforum.com/211596-list-hard-drive-diagnostic-utilities-test-your-drive.html

What happens when you boot the laptop with no hard drive installed? Can you try another hard drive in the laptop?

Clearly, there is a faulty piece of hardware which is preventing it from POSTing. Have you tried removing a stick of RAM and giving it another go? That may possibly be the cause.

Not being the most experienced in laptop diagnostics,(I'm more of a desktop guy if you like), these are just my best guesses, both of them are worth a try.

I did write a guide on how to diagnose a non-POSTing PC. Although it is primarily aimed at desktops, some of the steps apply to laptops. Here it is if you are interested in taking a read: http://www.computerforum.com/209946-tech-guide-diagnosing-pc-will-not-post-start.html

Good luck! :good:
 
A

airbusA346

Member
spirit said:
I'm not sure if this is correct or not, so bear with me, but this may be down to a bad hard drive. I would get all the files you can off it and then run a disk checker program on it to make sure that there are no bad sectors.

You can find a list of disk checkers here: http://www.computerforum.com/211596-list-hard-drive-diagnostic-utilities-test-your-drive.html
Click to expand...

This isn't my laptop (it's my brothers) and as far as I am aware the hard drive is partitioned. So it is only showing one partition (not the one with Windows) when I plug it into my desktop via eSATA. So I can't access any user files etc.

spirit said:
What happens when you boot the laptop with no hard drive installed? Can you try another hard drive in the laptop?
Click to expand...

The same. It freezes on the Samsung screen. Will try another hard drive in a bit and report back.

spirit said:
Clearly, there is a faulty piece of hardware which is preventing it from POSTing. Have you tried removing a stick of RAM and giving it another go? That may possibly be the cause.
Click to expand...

I have tried each RAM stick on it's own and the same problem is there (Samsung screen). If F2 is pressed at the correct time before it freezes, it beeps once (short).
 
A

airbusA346

Member
I have just tried another hard drive, and it hasn't changed the situation.

Also on the Samsung screen there is a blue loading bar at the bottom, which seems to stop part of the way and never moves once it reach that point (can be seen in the above photo).
 
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