Laptop Died

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Graeme
Cosmic Lounger
Posts: 1190
Joined: 11 Feb 2010, 12:23
Location: Medway, Kent, UK

Laptop Died

Post by Graeme »

Hello.

My laptop has intermitedly been typing endless 0s all by itself! Then it informed me that the snipping tool would no longer function and I should restart. I restarted and got a DOS looking error message I have not seen before telling me an HD check was required with a yes no choice. A no response just shut the thing down. A yes response started what looked like a reinstall routine that starts with me needing to advise what language I need to use then what keyboard layout then something else that led back to the first error message box.

Does this sound like a dead hard drive? Can I fix it? Can I recover the unbacked up data? Or should I start looking for a new laptop?

Regards

Graeme
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http://www.averywayobservatory.co.uk/

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HansV
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Joined: 16 Jan 2010, 00:14
Status: Microsoft MVP
Location: Wageningen, The Netherlands

Re: Laptop Died

Post by HansV »

The first symptom might be a keyboard error, but the others certainly point to a defective hard drive. Replacing it would be a good idea. That is not easy with many laptops, it is probably better done by a professional.
It would mean reinstalling Windows and all your applications from scratch, if you don't have an image backup.

After that, you might investigate whether the old hard disk can be read as an external disk, to see if anything can be salvaged from it.
Best wishes,
Hans

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Graeme
Cosmic Lounger
Posts: 1190
Joined: 11 Feb 2010, 12:23
Location: Medway, Kent, UK

Re: Laptop Died

Post by Graeme »

Ok, thanks Hans.

The laptop was bought in 2004 as a 40 year award for the company I work for! So it's probably about time it was retired. It's certainly time I retired!

Whilst I still have the raw data from my astrophotography on another pc I use for capturing, all the processed images are on the laptop. A lot of it is on OneDrive but some of it, the most recent stuff is not. I could reprocess it! Or perhaps I could take it somewhere to try and get it retrieved.

I was hoping you were going to say, just do this and this and it will come back to life! Thanks for the salvage tip.

Regards

Graeme
_______________________________________

http://www.averywayobservatory.co.uk/