I have a Dell Inspiron 1525 and it wont turn on. I mean i can turn it on but it doesn’t go directly to windows like it always does but instead it just does a blank screen with a blinking cursor on the top left. Before my laptop just freezes and turns off by itself or sometimes freezes then a blue screen appears and then after 2 weeks that thing happened it doesn’t turns on. Please please please help me!!

Sounds like this is hard drive failure. The laptop starts with a blinking cursor on the top left side of the screen because it cannot see the hard drive or the hard drive doesn’t work properly.

You can test the hard drive with SeaTools utility available for download from Seagate site. This utility works fine for most hard drives and can tell you if your hard drive is failing. Download the utility, burn it on a CD and boot the laptop from this CD. Run hard drive diagnostic test.

If the hard drive fails test, you’ll have to replace it with a new one and reinstall the operating system. You can reinstall the operating system from the recovery disc which usually comes with the laptop. Insert the recovery disc into the DVD drive and restart the laptop. It should start booting from the disc. Follow the instructions on the screen.

My Acer Aspire Notebook turns off all by itself just after turning on, or after Windows shows up. I can hear a click from inside, than it’s off.

First of all, turn on the notebook and listen for the cooling fan. Does it spin at all? Usually you can see the cooling fan though the air intake grill on the bottom of the notebook. If the fan doesn’t spin, it’s possible you have a failed fan and the notebook turns off because of overheating. If that’s the case, the cooling fan has to be replaced.

If the cooling fan works properly,listen for the hard drive sounds. It’s possible you have a failing hard drive. If the hard drive makes clicking noise, it’s bad and has to be replaced.

If the hard drive is failing, you still can try recovering data using an external USB enclosure.

I dropped my dell laptop, now it turns on & shows the xp windows logo. I notice the the booting bar is in activation but it does not stop, ever.

Most likely you damaged the hard drive.
Listen closely for noises coming from the hard drive when the laptop tries loading Windows. Can you hear repetitive clicking noise or grinding noise? If yes, the hard drive was damaged.
Turn off the laptop as soon as possible. Hopefully you still can recover personal files from the failing hard drive.

If the hard drive was damaged, you’ll have to replace it with a new one and reinstall Windows OS.

I have my Nec Versa laptop which works perfect when turned on. However when I switch on the power, the front blue power light turns on but without anything on the screen. I have to force the blue light off by pressing down the power switch. I try the turn on/off process for quite a while until the screen finally starts. This process irritates me because sometimes i have to make so many trials or even give up. Any ideas about the causes and solutions?

First of all, I would check the memory modules. It’s possible that one of the memory modules is not making good contact with the slot or failing.

Try reconnecting both memory modules and test the laptop.

Try removing memory modules one by one and test the laptop with only one module installed. When the faulty module is removed, the laptop should start properly.

Try installing different memory module into different slots on the motherboard. It’s possible not the memory module but the slot itself going bad.

I have a HP Pavilion dv6000. I push power and it flashes for a second then nothing. The power supply is fine, as is the battery. The place I bought it says I should just buy a new one for the price of repairs. How do I know if it’s Mother Board, or could bad memory cause this symptom?

First of all, make sure the power supply works properly. You can test it with a voltmeter.

If the power supply is fine, your problem could be related to the memory or motherboard failure.

Most likely your HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop has two memory (RAM) modules installed. Both memory modules can be accessed from the laptop bottom.
Try removing memory modules one by one. Test your laptop with each memory module in either memory slot.

If you have the same problem when only one memory module installed, most likely this is the motherboard failure. It’s very unlikely that both memory modules failed at the same time.

By the way, some HP Pavilion dv6000 have a known problem with the motherboard and HP fixes this issue at no charge if your laptop qualifies.

I have a Toshiba Satellite R15 with Windows XP. It doesn’t boot, it says that \system32\hal.dll is missing. I have a recovery disc, but nothing happens when I put in. Is there something special I should do?

Do you understand that running the recovery disc will erase everything from the hard drive? Please back up all personal files before starting the recovery process. All personal data (music, videos, pictures, documents, etc…) will be gone.

In order to backup all personal files, you’ll have to remove the hard drive and connect it to another working computer using an external USB enclosure.

Here’s how you can boot your Satellite R15 laptop from the recovery disc and start the recovery process:

1. Insert the recovery disc into the DVD drive.
2. Restart the laptop and as soon as Toshiba logo appears on the screen press on the F12 key. This will take you to the boot device menu.
3. Using the arrow key, select the CD/DVD drive and press enter.
4. The laptop will start booting from the recovery disc.
5. Follow instructions on the screen.

My dog knocked my laptop off the table when it was on now the laptop starts but no image appears on the screen. The light comes on when I press on the power button and the fan starts working, but the screen remains dark. I tested laptop with an external monitor and couldn’t get it to work. The external monitor worked before just fine.

Take a look in the memory compartment. It’s likely that one or both memory modules got dislocated from their slots.
Try reconnecting memory modules. Simply remove modules from their slots and install back. Power up the laptop and see if it fixed the problem.

My laptop just died as I came back from school. I took the battery out and had it unplugged. I waited a minute or so, in this time I pressed the power button to drain whatever energy was left in the circuitry and after I just flipped it back over and placed the battery back in. As i tried to turn it on, the green light came on but only for a second and turned off again.

I think you have a failed power adapter. Apparently, the power adapter died while you were using the laptop. The laptop worked until the battery had charge and finally shut off.

Now the laptop will not turn on because the battery is empty and the power adapter doesn’t provide any power at all. That’s why the green power light comes on only for a second.

Test your power adapter with a multimeter to confirm the failure. Alternatively, you can test the laptop with another known good adapter.

I just changed out my hard drive on my Panasonic CF-Y2. I reloaded windows XP and can see all of the files on my hard drive when I use a Linux CD Rom operating disk, so I know the drive works, but I cannot boot XP from my hard drive. I continue to get the dreaded PXE-E61 “media test failure” message at start-up.

Most likely it happens because the hard drive is not set as the first boot device in the BIOS and the laptop is trying to boot from LAN. That’s why you are getting “media test failure” message.

Enter the BIOS setup menu and change the boot order. Make sure the hard drive is the first device in the list of bootable devices. Save setting and reboot the laptop.

Now the laptop should start booting from the hard drive.

By the way, if you installed a brand new hard drive and it doesn’t appear in the BIOS, enter the BIOS setup menu and try loading default settings. There should be a button which allows to set default settings. Save changes and restart the laptop.

It looks like my laptop getting power and charging the battery but when I go to turn it on the power light goes on for about 3 seconds the the unit turns back off again. Any ideas???
It’s a Toshiba Satellite P300.

It’s possible that there is a problem with the AC power adapter. Maybe the adapter is not working properly under load. Test the laptop with another known good adapter.

If the laptop still fails even with another AC adapter, most likely this is the motherboard failure. You’ll have to replace the motherboard.