Not starting up!!!!

hey,

my sister has a compaq laptop its a a good few years old i think about 3 or 4 she's had no trouble with it in the past but yesterday its decided not to start up, ive had a look at it myself and i dont have a clue why it won't work....

When it turns on it comes to a black screen then up comes a lot of writing then it stays on the same screen its about a quarter of the screen full of text and the only thing that stands out is that it says ethernet control error or malfunction can't remember but it was definately about ethernet control, but from what i know 'ethernet' is an internet cable from a router to a computer the thick yellow one if i remember rightly. so i dont have a clue she says she left the laptop turned on over night whilst it was connected to the internet and when she went to go on it in the morning it was on this screen so she turned it off then on and the same screen appeared...

so if anyone knows what it could be it would a great help thanx..i know its not a lot of info and im sorry but i only had a quick look at it before i went work sorry...

thanx in advance

 

Have you tried unplugging the ethernet cable from your sister's laptop, and then booting?
You can try booting into Windows Safe Mode. Just press F8 right after the Bios boots. That will allow you to see a one time boot menu, which will allow you to select safe mode.
If you still cannot get the system to run properly, than you should remove the harddrive from her laptop, and use a USB to notebook ata adaptor, like this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002
in order to back up all of her files on another computer. Then you should reformat the drive with Windows Xp or whatever is on there.

K-TRON

 

standard procedure

1) Take out the battery pack and unplug AC power

2) Hold the power button for 30 seconds or more

3) Now only plug in the AC power and try starting again

 

yeah i tried unplugging the ethernet cable but still same.
Ok going to try this advice shortly thanx...

 

Standard CMOS reset has helped me in the past just like flipfire has suggested. Might help you as well.

 

ok..ive tried all steps and now it starts up perfectly without the battery pack in..and when i have the battery pack in it starts up but then freezes on the desktop...

 

hmmm..ive just ran it in safe mode, it lstarted loading up then restarted then it started up correctly all seemed fine then an error came up on screen about win32 then everything changed from xp theme to the old grey windows theme, then it came up with a blue screen which said it had to be shut down so it restarted then didthe whole process over again...oh and while all this is going theres a wierd sound comeing from the laptop..it sounds like gun shots from an old space raider game ya know the sharp high pitch sound...

 

the error that comes up on the blue stop error screen is:

KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR

 

Do you know if its comming from the hard drive?

 

it sounds like it is..couldnt be 100% sure though

 

yep definately from the harddrive

 

sorry to hear, but its gonna need to be replaced. Hard drive failure happens often specially with age

it should be an IDE drive which should be a cheap replacement

 

ok thanx man, will it not even make any difference if reformatted or is it totally gone?

 

its already making the death-whirl sounds, so its safe to say its a goner

 

lol ok thanx for all your help anyway...ive been telling her to buy a new one for a while anyway so looks like its about time she did.