Author: pselliott
Subject: Laptop Start-up Problem
Posted: 21 November 2013 at 6:40pm
Thank you Jimster.
An update! Yesterday I installed a new battery (even though the system said the old one was good), and after charging, no luck. This morning however, after a couple of attempts, I put a known good for boot Dell OS Reinstallation CD for WinXP Pro (the laptop runs Home) in the CD drive, and for lack of anything better to do, pressed Alt>Ctl>Del>f2 and power, and it started, requesting to boot from CD or not. I chose Boot from CD, then Recovery Console. After some gyrations, I came to an option I don't know anything about or Cancel, and chose Cancel. The laptop system then started as normal, and is what I'm typing with now.
The problem now is what to do next. Despite being familiar with only a few of the Sysinternals Suite, I do not know where to go or what to look at, or search for, whatever problem(s) this thing has. CMOS is probably involved, but I'm not familiar enough to know what to do about it. Yes, I have an old version of Windows Internals (4), but that doesn't tell me where to go to look for what's wrong. Is there a log somewhere that I can look at that tells me what the system is doing at any particular point (like shutdown/start up/etc.)? Should I do a kernal dump? And what would I look for in the data? Is there something in Sysinternalls Suite that can assist me in debugging? Where in this forum should I be looking for help and ideas? (now that I think about it, I forgot to mention that the OS has a persistent problem with COM+ as well, but that's for another day).
The mother board is new(used), and was installed by a guy who knew what he was doing. It has been running fine until recently, which leads me to believe it was something that happened after installation, not a result of. I do have a new(er) laptop that my brother gave me, and I use it when this thing poops out, but it is not a laptop I want to use for day to day. A new one is out of the question, due to finances. But that does bring to mind another idea; can I use the other laptop (same OS, WinXP) to examine this laptop for problems?
So, you see where I'm at. I don't ask much of this laptop during the day, but I do need it to start and stop like it's supposed to. I just don't know where to look or what to use to look, to find the problem. Sorry, didn't mean to take so much time and ramble. Thank you for taking the time to respond.
paul
Subject: Laptop Start-up Problem
Posted: 21 November 2013 at 6:40pm
Thank you Jimster.
An update! Yesterday I installed a new battery (even though the system said the old one was good), and after charging, no luck. This morning however, after a couple of attempts, I put a known good for boot Dell OS Reinstallation CD for WinXP Pro (the laptop runs Home) in the CD drive, and for lack of anything better to do, pressed Alt>Ctl>Del>f2 and power, and it started, requesting to boot from CD or not. I chose Boot from CD, then Recovery Console. After some gyrations, I came to an option I don't know anything about or Cancel, and chose Cancel. The laptop system then started as normal, and is what I'm typing with now.
The problem now is what to do next. Despite being familiar with only a few of the Sysinternals Suite, I do not know where to go or what to look at, or search for, whatever problem(s) this thing has. CMOS is probably involved, but I'm not familiar enough to know what to do about it. Yes, I have an old version of Windows Internals (4), but that doesn't tell me where to go to look for what's wrong. Is there a log somewhere that I can look at that tells me what the system is doing at any particular point (like shutdown/start up/etc.)? Should I do a kernal dump? And what would I look for in the data? Is there something in Sysinternalls Suite that can assist me in debugging? Where in this forum should I be looking for help and ideas? (now that I think about it, I forgot to mention that the OS has a persistent problem with COM+ as well, but that's for another day).
The mother board is new(used), and was installed by a guy who knew what he was doing. It has been running fine until recently, which leads me to believe it was something that happened after installation, not a result of. I do have a new(er) laptop that my brother gave me, and I use it when this thing poops out, but it is not a laptop I want to use for day to day. A new one is out of the question, due to finances. But that does bring to mind another idea; can I use the other laptop (same OS, WinXP) to examine this laptop for problems?
So, you see where I'm at. I don't ask much of this laptop during the day, but I do need it to start and stop like it's supposed to. I just don't know where to look or what to use to look, to find the problem. Sorry, didn't mean to take so much time and ramble. Thank you for taking the time to respond.
paul