Laptop Problem

[dohman]

buddy of mine gave me his sheridan IBM thinkpad a while back, for some reason it wasn't booting at all of my original OS disk i have, then finally i got it to boot on a brand new xp home edtion but it always stops when is about ot start the installation. How can i solve this problem? is the hd need replacing?

[Evil Gemini]

Go into the bios and have a look at what the 2nd boot device is set on.

It should be hdd 0.

I remember installing windows and it wouldnt install because i forgot to put the 2nb boot to the hdd 0

Also, it could be the cd rom playing up. A freind of mine asked if i can install xp on his pc but it kept giving me errors and then when i change the cd rom, it installed fine.

Another thing, when it boots with xp cd, go to the recovery option and delete the mbr just incase.

If thats no help to you, does it atleast boot into the part when it asks to delete/create partitions ??

If it does, creat one (if not already created) and see under it if it sais

"unpartitioned space 8mb"

If it sais 0mb instead of 8mb, then thats where the problem is and ill tell you how to fix it.

[dohman]

k i followed ur instructions, but still the same it gets rdy on intalling windowns but stop when it says "Setup is starting Windows" nothin boots at all not the cd rom or hdd

[foot loose]

has it got a hard drive password lock on it?? coz if it haz it will not install any of the xp files on to the hdrive

[dohman]

i check the cmos is unlock no passwords are set

[dohman]

anyone

[I.am]

Config of laptop?

[Evil Gemini]

Originally posted by dohman@8 February 2004 - 11:39
k i followed ur instructions, but still the same it gets rdy on intalling windowns but stop when it says "Setup is starting Windows" nothin boots at all not the cd rom or hdd

have you tried booting with a windows 98 boot disk ?

[tesco]

its could be the hard drive, my computer stopped working a few days ago after i added a few fans to teh case and cleaned up the wires a bit. on boot it said ntsomething or other was missing so i tried to a repair install but when i put the cd in it said setup could not start please press r to restart your computer. I assumed it was a hard drive problem and unhooked the hard drive and then setup started so i knew it was the hard drive or ide cable, i tried another ide cable and the hard drive booted into windows so the IDE cable must have gotten damaged when i was cleaning the wires in my case. do laptops have ide cables? if they do try using a different one if not then it could be a hard drive problem but i am not sure.

[dohman]

thsi laptop has no floppy drive, and ihave tried moslty evy operatng system i have, i will try to get my hands on another hd and see if it will work