It lives! Sort of.....

AllenOK

New member
Got the laptop to boot up this morning!

PeppA was doing a little cleaning, had picked up the laptop, then accidentally dropped it an inch or two. That was yesterday.

Last night, on my way to bed, I noticed that the two LED's that were on, were both blue, instead of one blue and one red. I opened the lid, and hit the power button. It started the boot sequence!

However, it didn't boot. It started beeping, and gave me a black screen with a flashing cursor on the upper left corner.

That's happened before, and I've found that if I stop it, and hit the power button again, usually a total of three times, it will boot up.

It booted this morning. I'm still getting the "flashing" issue with the Start button, Show desktop button, the arrow to expand the Quicklaunch menu, and the last icon on the screen that I used.

Now to find out iff there's anything I can do to save it. I've got some files I want to transfer off as well.
 

Jim_S

Resident Curmudgeon
Gold Site Supporter
That's GREAT! Hope you can copy your files and maybe fix it too!


Jim
 

AllenOK

New member
Well, I think I've got a handle on the "flashing" issue.

Shortly after I typed the first post in this thread, I started experiencing an odd problem. Whenever I had an open box to type into, the computer would start inputting the number 4, in auto-repeat. I could hit a different number or letter, and that would go in, but it would instantly go back to inputting 4.

I think there's a problem with the on-board keyboard for the laptop. What is was doing with the "flashing" issue, was that it was registering that the TAB button was being pressed, and not released. So, at desktop, it would cycle through and highlight the things that you could navigate to with the Tab button. This also makes sense about the spreadsheet I tried to type data into, where it kept highlighting different cells, to fast for me to type.

I tried to disable the on-board keyboard, but that function was greyed-out. I'm wondering if I can open the case and maybe detach the wires that plug the keyboard into the system bus or MB? Then just plug the good keyboard back into the USB port.

I did get the data moved off the HDD that I wanted. Found some pics that I had captured in 2008 that I thought were "lost", as well as some recipes that I had typed and "lost" when the thing "crashed".

I am currently back on PeppA's laptop, since I can't type replies into the various forums I participate in.
 

Miniman

Mini man - maxi food
Gold Site Supporter
You can replace/remove the keyboard quite easily. If you google "replace keyboard model of laptop", there will uinstructions & often a video. Normally you take off the strip above the keyboard, which gives you ability to pull out the keyboard which plugs into a socket underneath.

I did this for my laptop, the new keyboard cost about £20 and it took about 10 minutes - the previous time it had cost £180 for a repair man to do it.
 

ChowderMan

Pizza Chef
Super Site Supporter
the beeps are generated during the POST (Power On Self Test) - that happens before the pc knows anything about the operating system or any kind of infection.

there is usually a series of beeps - beep(s) pause beep(s) pause beep(s)

it's a code - typically three groups of beeps - translates to a "number". if you ask around about your specific model you may be able to get some intelligent info on what the code means. some codes are hugely informative - ala "Something is broke" - others are more specific - like 'dead hard drive' or 'stuck key'

typically the built in keyboard on a notebook cannot be disabled. you can attach an external, but alas and alack, that still may not allow the machine to 'by-pass' the keyboard error - the two keyboard operate concurrently and the BIOS will still suffer the stuck key issue. it is also ill-advised to boot the machine with the internal keyboard disconnected - that can kill some motherboards.

as mentioned by others - replacing the keyboard is not especially expensive or difficult if you have small tools and take the time to find/read an online dis-assembly 'tutorial' for your specific machine.
 

buzzard767

golfaknifeaholic
Gold Site Supporter
I have lots of files that I need to access often, online banking, etc. I zip the files and send them to online storage (free) like aol, hotmail, or gmail. Some allow files as large as 20 meg with total online storage of several gigs. Even if I have to buy or borrow a different computer those files are just an email retrieval away. Really big files get saved to other drives, hard, flash, whatever.
 

Shermie

Well-known member
Site Supporter
Got the laptop to boot up this morning!

PeppA was doing a little cleaning, had picked up the laptop, then accidentally dropped it an inch or two. That was yesterday.

Last night, on my way to bed, I noticed that the two LED's that were on, were both blue, instead of one blue and one red. I opened the lid, and hit the power button. It started the boot sequence!

However, it didn't boot. It started beeping, and gave me a black screen with a flashing cursor on the upper left corner.

That's happened before, and I've found that if I stop it, and hit the power button again, usually a total of three times, it will boot up.

It booted this morning. I'm still getting the "flashing" issue with the Start button, Show desktop button, the arrow to expand the Quicklaunch menu, and the last icon on the screen that I used.

Now to find out iff there's anything I can do to save it. I've got some files I want to transfer off as well.



I just had to do a recovery (restore) on my 2nd latop computer this morning.

Started acting up last night, froze up and wouldn't move! Forcing me to shut it down and to try to reboot! Then it just kept on going back to that blasted black page where you choose to either fix problems with the hard drive or choose to restart Windows and it just wouldn't reboot!! The 30-second waiting period would just keep on starting over with no results at all!

Luckily, I already had the set of 3 recovery disks!! They are a godsend! Said "Forget this!!"

I've restored it back to it's original factory default. It is working like new once more, like I just took it out of the box!! Thank God for restore disks! :thumb:
 
Last edited:

FryBoy

New member
I have lots of files that I need to access often, online banking, etc. I zip the files and send them to online storage (free) like aol, hotmail, or gmail. Some allow files as large as 20 meg with total online storage of several gigs. Even if I have to buy or borrow a different computer those files are just an email retrieval away. Really big files get saved to other drives, hard, flash, whatever.
Check out www.mozy.com. 2GB of FREE online storage, $5 per month for unlimited storage. Highly secure 464-bit encryption, fast (depending on our connection speed, of course), works in the background when the computer is not being used.
 
Top