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Laptop Gone Norks Up

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    Laptop Gone Norks Up

    All,
    My Dell D600 laptop is playing up, get the Dell logo, says starting windows XP and then reboots (never gets to alt-ctrl-del). Tried all the recovery mode options, no joy. I've got an XP re-install cd, if I reinstall will that wipe everything or just do the op system (they are in the same partition), realise I am clutching at straws, not the end of the world if I have to scrub it except losing some software and a few docs.
    All help appreciated.

    #2
    Have you tried pressing the f8 key whilst it is booting?
    Insanity: repeating the same actions, but expecting different results.
    threadeds website, and here's my blog.

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by cswd
      Moral of the story: Backup backup backup.

      If you have an original XP CD, poke it in and hit F2 when it asks to start automated system recovery. That will work in most cases.

      If you have a Dell OEM autobuilding CD which just trashes your disk, then hard luck.
      If you don't have a real XP CD, is your data worth buying one? OEM price not too costly.

      Or get a live linux CD and boot from that.

      Or take out the disk and put it in one of those extenal USB cases, and read it from another PC.

      Comment


        #4
        Or buy one of those laptop to desktop IDE cables - should only cost a few quid.

        Comment


          #5
          Originally posted by expat
          Or take out the disk and put it in one of those extenal USB cases, and read it from another PC.
          If you have trouble reading the data, try downloading Active@ File Recovery (I don't have the link handy, will post it later tonight if you need it, although Google should be able to help) for $49. Best $49 I ever spent. It has earned me several hundred £'s retrieving data for other clients. It can even retreive data from a formatted hard drive.

          Oh, and as someone else mentioned, invest in a backup device of some sort. You know it makes sense.
          His heart is in the right place - shame we can't say the same about his brain...

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