Oh boy... laptop won't start

My laptop became totally unresponsive this morning, so I did a "hard" reboot by holding down the power button. I didn't turn it on again then left for school.

Now, when I boot it up, the Asus + Intel logo come up (and it makes that sound), but then restarts, then this cycle continues forever.

I've tried tapping F8 (F8 is safe mode right?) and it doesn't work. I've tried tapping Delete, which brings me to a menu where I can choose between Start Windows Vista normally, or run Memory Diagnostics. When Start Windows normally is highlighted, it says press F8 to view other options. If I press F8, the computer restarts and the cycle starts again.

I'm wondering if anyone can help me

EDIT: I haven't installed any new hardware at all. The last program I installed was probably morpheus, although I have turned on/off many times since then. This morning I was checking the weather and doing some surfing. The night before I was listening to music and surfing, and received a song via MSN from a trusted friend.

I'm thinking its something to do with that reboot I forced.

 

Reapir your installation using the vista repair disk.. Thats the only thing i think you can do , Unless you can boot off a live CD and figure out whats wrong... Which wouldnt be easy.

 

I don't have a Vista repair disk.

I only have the Asus Recovery Disk that came with the laptop. I tried putting it in but can't figure out how to boot from disk. I've tried F8 and Delete but F8 does nothing and Delete doesn't show any option to boot from disk.

 

enter your bios and set the CD drive to higher priority than your hardrive. sorry..dont know what key to enter the bios off the top of my head.

 

Yeah, get into the BIOS and change the boot order so that your optical drive is first.

 

Alright, now the Recovery CD can load. Before I go ahead and recover though, I have 2 more questions:

Obviously, I would prefer not to lose all my data (If I recall, I had used about 100GB already). Any ideas how to back up? When my desktop had problems before I was able to hook 2 harddrives up (mine which wasn't loading and a friends working one) to a working computer, then create recovery disks. If anyone has an idea to do this, or some other method of backing up my files, that would be great.

Lite suggested booting off a live cd, what does that mean? Is there some way to boot off a disk into safe mode or something like that?

Thanks for the help so far.

 

On a standard Windows Vista DVD there is the option to repair your "Startup" ( http://www.winsupersite.com/images/showcase/vista_recovery_17.jpg).
Do you have access to a standard Vista DVD? This way should be much easier since it doesn't delete any files and you don't have to do a backup.
If that doesn't work I can walk you through on making a backup using "Command Prompt" on a standard Vista DVD or look for a "Command Prompt" option on your ASUS recovery disc.

 

Will someone else's Vista DVD work with my product key? I don't know how the process works, so maybe that's irrelavent anyway.

I can try to get one off a friend, I'm sure someone has one.

I'll try to find Command Prompt. However, when I booted off the Recovery Disk, all I got was a message telling me all data will be erased. I didn't click next for fear it may just start recovering without any further prompts.

EDIT: Definately couldn't find any command prompts using the recovery disk. Windows+R had no luck either ...
The only options on the Asus DVD were Recover first partition, recover entire hard drive, or recover entire harddrive into 2 partitions. (maybe one other).

 

I think you can forget about your recovery disc then.
All it does is copying an image to your hard disc.
I don't think you'll find the "Command Prompt" option on there then.

Boot from your friends DVD and click on "Repair Windows Installation, Recovery, ..." or something like that (Don't do a new installation.
Make sure you click repair or recovery).
After that you should see the "System Recovery Options" ( http://www.winsupersite.com/images/s...ecovery_17.jpg).
Just click on "Startup Repair" and tell me if it worked.

Don't worry. Your friends disc will have nothing to do with your key.
All it does is repairing the "Startup" files on your hard disc using the ones on the CD.
The rest of your Windows installation including all of your files and your Vista key will not be changed.

 

Alright man thanks. I'm still trying to contact some people. I may have to wait until tomorrow to get a DVD from someone. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

hit escape during POST (the bootup memtest and enter setup thingie).. and.. if its like my A7Sv and my Asus P5K mobo in my desktop machine it should give you a bootup menu that lets you pick what to boot.. that way you dont have to edit in the bios... (well on my P5K its F8 but on my A7Sv it says hit ESC to enter Boot Select menu)

 

Anyone have any ideas how/why this happened?

I've done worse than hold the power button on this old Compaq before. Frequently cutting the power to shut it off... and of course there was that 126 Degree GPU thing... but it still works fine lol.

 

Maybe you can download the Vista Recovery CD image (120MB) and repair your Vista: Data Recovery

/Tomi

 

Yeah, that would be a good idea. No need to wait for a friend's Vista DVD.

if you need to back up your data, it's not so complicated. Here are some options:

1. Buy an external enclosure for your HDD (or if you have a SATA external enclosure, just use it). Remove HDD, put in enclosure, plug it into a desktop and save your data.

2. Boot from a LiveLinux CD with NTFS write support (ntfs-3g), copy your files from the C: partition to the D: partition, if you have one. Recover to 1st partition only.

In the future, you should make sure you always keep your data on the D: partition so that you can wipe your Windows clean without worrying about the data, when needed.

 

This same restart loop happened to my son's ASUS F3sv two days ago. I didn't really know what else to do other than using the recovery disc to reinstall. Of course , we lost a bunch of files which were not backup up.
More importantly, I googled this "vista restart loop" and got some very interesting hits on similar / same problem within the last two weeks caused by , YOU:LL LOVE THIS , MICROSOFT ! yes, apparently through their auto update program a number of machines have been hit with this problem. They have apparently pulled the update which caused the problem, thanks, too late for me ! I don't have the time to delve deepeer into this , but those of you in the know may be able to help others. See this article

LaxPacman

 

Sorry ,heres one article on this

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/vista/microsoft_pulls_troubled_vista_update.html

 

Interestingly enough, even though those guys tend to bash Microsoft for this blunder, however the website looks horrible in my Firefox whereas it looks perfect with IExplore.

Makes you wonder...

 

Thanks for all the help guys. My friends Vista DVD worked like a charm, by fixing the Startup.

My friend said I probably fragmented the Hard Drive by turning it off or something like that. Anyway, all seems good now.

E.B.E., any way to create a new partition, then transfer existing data?

 

I would also recommend buying an external HD. This way it is much easier to make backups and you can never go wrong with all the extra storage!

 

Yeah, you can create a new partition. Use for instance qtParted or gParted from a Linux Live CD.