My DV800z is in a coma

I'd been debating buying a new lappy for months and months but had decided to wait until Christmas or atleast until my refunds came in. That all went out the window when my lappy stopped working.

Whenever I start it up it gets to the Microsoft Windows screen and stays there.

Is my hard drive dead? Help

 

I don't think your hard drive is dead, otherwise BIOS would say something and you would get a message that it could not find the drive and/or an OS...which you know you do because of the XP screen.

Can you try to boot into Safe Mode? There may be some software or driver or virus that screwed with things.

 

This is what I get when I try that.




I really need to learn how to turn the flash off on my digicam

 

Ideally I'd run SpinRite to thoroughly test the HD. It's a bit expensive but I've found it to be extremely useful. If the HD has errors there's a decent chance SpinRite can repair the damage long enough for you to transfer your data off. It takes a few hours for SpinRite to do a thorough analysis of a drive.

It's more likely that your Windows installation is simply broken. You could try doing a Windows repair installation, that's a bit extreme but often effective. If you do get Windows up and running again you'll want to do a full virus/worm/spyware sweep. In fact, plugging the HD into one of those USB-to-IDE adapters and scanning it from your other notebook would be a good idea. Remember to remove the battery before removing the HD. There will be an adapter on the HD's IDE connector that you'll need to carefully remove and set aside. See the HP service guide if you need to.

I fixed a broken Compaq V2000z (same generation as your HP dv8000z) that had both bad tracks on the HD and a broken Windows installation. The bad tracks may have been incidental. When SpinRite finds errors I replace the drive, period. The Seagate 5400.3 I bought was a very nice improvement over the stock 4200RPM 2MB cache drive.