TOTALLY CRASHED! What should I do now?

So i was on the net surfing, and my screen goes blue, and my computer restarts. On the restart, the only thing that comes up is a "lenovo rescue and recover" page and it stays there. I took it to my schools IT dept. and they can't fix it either. Their report says "reset laptop-post-beeps once" "won't boot from cd"

I purchased this about a year ago, but on lenovos website, it says my warranty expired on the 24th of april. I got advised to purchase the extended warranty, and someone else told me there may be a grace period. Any tips or advice? I dont care if I lose everything cause nothing was that important, but I really want my computer functioning.

here are the specs:

T8300 processor, NVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M graphics, 160GB HD, vista

Thanks for any help

 

If you purchased it with a credit card, some extend the warranty. Maybe try to re-seat the memory and hard drive, but from a far, it seems you're going to have to spend some money. I've never heard of a grace period. Good Luck.

 

If it is the hard drive, that won't be too costly. But you will need media to reinstall your OS.

 

Lenovo offers Post-warranty annual maintenance agreements. You will find a complete list at this Lenovo link.

I recently bought one for a Z60t that is a few weeks out of warranty. Or, at least I think I did. The order Status is still shown as "In process" on the web site where you can look up orders, providing you have your customer number and order number. Hint, don't hang up from sales without having both.

By the way, the phone number on this page did not work for me, but I reached a sales person at 1-866-968-4465 who was happy to take the order.

The sales center hours end at 7:00pm Eastern Time.

Best of luck . . . Jim

 

Have you tried booting from a CD (e.g. a Live Linux Distro) or entering the BIOS to see if your HDD/RAM is properly detected? If booting from an internal optical drive fails, see if you can borrow a USB model and try that.

At the very least it sounds like your Windows bootloader is corrupted, but you may have a hardware problem as well.

 

Lesson - kick your friend's a$$ for even suggesting that there's a grace period. Twice.

The beeps they're referring to are beep codes - they tell you what the specific boot problem is with the system.

Don't rely on local "techs" - unless they're at least 35 or older, they're not worth crap as a tech. Either they don't know what they're doing or they didn't do something right.

POST stands for Power On Self Test - it's a standard boot function when the system starts. A single beep means that the POST has successfully passed and the system has booted. But they say it won't boot from a DVD, so either it's not being recognized, they used the wrong disk, or they don't know jack. Probably a combination.

Your best option is the Lenovo Forums on the Lenovo site or to do research on your system's support site page for your particular model configuration. Stuff like this doesn't just happen to one person, so there should be a record of it somewhere. Never hurts to Google the problem as well.

If you didn't extend your warranty, you're screwed in that regard - sorry. That's why they give you a last opportunity to extend. Despite what Tucson says, you can't get an extended warranty now - you usually have to confirm via the manufacturer site that the system is functional. Too many people try to get an extension after their system breaks, but you can always check. But don't be surprised if you can't do it.

 

CyberVisions: local techs are your B&M store aren't paid that well so it stands to reason that they are of mediocre quality . All the real IT guys are suffering in enterprise.

 

How does this work? what does it cover?...thanks.

 

What andyP told him on the Lenovo forum was that since he purchased the system in June 2008 the warranty might not be up yet, to dig out his invoice and call Lenovo.

http://forum.lenovo.com/lnv/board/message?board.id=T_Series_Thinkpads&view=by_date_ascending&message.id=34378#M34378

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but Lenovo would only adjust the warranty date if the system was purchased new from a Lenovo authorized dealer. If it was purchased used or from an unauthorized dealer, then they would not extend the warranty. I hope it works out.

 

Right, but it's worth a shot if he still has his invoice. Although even if it was used, if he had the original invoice he might could get the warranty period adjusted since the warranty belongs to the TP and not the owner. If it were me, I would certainly call and ask. (Well, actually, I would just badger someone a little closer, but you get my drift!)

 

Depending on which product you choose, it's just an extension of the regular warranty. I could be naive, but in the past it has been possible to purchase a warranty extension on some products after the original warranty has expired. I would not have guessed that, but several years ago while trouble shooting a large printer, the service people suggested that rather than pay close to $400 for an ethernet daugherboard, I should purchase a 1 year maintenance agreement for considerably less so that they could dispatch a repairman to replace it.

I did. They did. Happy ending. Admittedly, that was IBM and some time ago . . . But, the salesperson with whom I spoke a couple of days ago accepted the order knowing that the Z60t is several weeks past its original three year warranty. That said, the order has not processed yet, so I could be very wrong. That happens from time to time. Just ask my wife.

 

yes, i purchased this straight from lenovo. So your saying I should call and see what they say about extending a warranty than...I'll have to wait until i get home from college to get the invoice.

 

If you purchased it from Lenovo last June, then you should have a warranty. Call them to get it straightened out and fixed. Given that you've got a known defective GPU, you may wish to upgrade the warranty.