CF-74 Won't boot past BIOS!

Hello everyone,

Clients computer.. won't boot past bios. Here is a short video of the problem:

CF74 - YouTube

Stuff I've tried:

1. Taken out all RAM and turned on machine. Wont even show post screen doing this. Also I don't hear any beeps from the motherboard like I'm used too. (Bad mobo?)
   
2. I've taken out the battery and just used A/C Adapter.. (also tried it opposite) same problem.
   
3. I've taken out the optical drive.. same problem.
   
4. I've taken out the hard drive.. just gives me OS not found error so that's fine.
   
5. I've reset BIOS to defaults..

So I'm all out of ideas. Can't even run my diagnostic scan (PCDoctor) because it won't boot far enough in to load a disk.

I've also attached a picture of the important stuff. Any help is appreciated!

Regards,

Brandon

 

Did you take all of that stuff out at the same time? Put it back 1 at a time starting with the ram. Then the floppy or optical drive. Will it boot from the optical to a live linux cd?
As far as I know the OS not found is after the bios POST check. I am guessing it's the hard drive.

 

The CF-74 has no builtin RAM and all are removable. Since you've taken all out. Its imposible to boot up. So when testing leave at least one Ram before hitting the power switch. Test one slot at time with known good ram and see what happen.

ohlip

 

I've tried both of these solutions. D: Same results.

You know.. I REALLY don't know why I didn't try it before.. But I'll set the odd as the 1st boot device. Troubleshooting is like second nature for me.. can't believe I didn't try that.

I'll get back here with results.


UPDATE: *facepalm* So that obviously allowed me to boot up to cd. Ran some initial diagnostics with PCDoctor and all hardware passes so far. Probably just a corrupt windows. But the strange thing is that I can't even access the advanced boot options for windows by tapping F8. Even with a failed windows install you should be able to do that... possibly a bootsector virus?

Going to bed for now, I will update you guys with more tomorrow. Probably going to run some scans in a PE environment.

 

This same problem happened to me on my CF-52 and it was my lightscribe burner that was causing the problem. BIOS would load but then just a blue screen.

 

Update: Booted up to my PE rescue disk and ran some virus scans on the hard drive but it didn't detect anything. I can obviously browse the hard drives files. But the original problem remains.. black screen as shown in the video.

Have any ideas guys?

 

Bump. Reinstalled windows but product key failed. Anyone know where I can order a CF-74E Recovery disk?

 

Did you try to activate by phone? Or do you have the wrong version of Windows?

 

Have you tried to run fixmbr.exe from the windows cd? It's a long shot, and may be too late since you tried to reinstall, but this has fixed alot of those startup issues I run across with windows.

YMMV

 

Unfortunately not, so we will never know.

Man.. I really need to get this up and running. Can't I use an OEM Windows disk with the Key on the bottom?

 

Yes you can. I do it all the time. Just did it on a cf51 using a Dell disk last night.

 

Yes but you can't use a XP Pro key on XP...it must be the same version.

(Pan)OEM XP Pro key and Retail XP Pro cd...no, never worked for me
(Pan)OEM XP Pro key and a dell XP Pro cd...worked great for me

 

What's this "retail" stuff that you speak of?

 

Thats right retail ...Shawn incoming email with pic

- Windows XP Pro Corp
- Windows XP Pro Retail
- Windows XP Pro OEM
- Windows XP Pro Upgrade
- Windows XP Home Retail
- Windows XP Home OEM
- Windows XP Home Upgrade
- Windows XP MCE Retail
- Windows XP MCE OEM
- Windows XP Enterprise

 

Arte Johnson says "Very interesting" picture

Goldie Hawn sure was young.

 

Did you use the dell cd UN-MODIFIED? Like did you mess with the oembios files and the setupp.ini file.

 

dell oem cd with panny oem coa from bottom.

 

Got it reinstalled now. Used customized dell oem pro sp2 cd with panny oembios files..
Just trying to find the bluetooth driver..

 

You should be able to use this file which is for a CF-74 Mk4. You will have to extract it with WinRAR or you will just get the "This machine does not support" message.

Bluetooth stack driver

 

Just in case a newbie reads this thread in the future. Dell system restore disks, up through XP SP3 will work fine to reload the operating system on Toughbooks up through CF-30, CF-18, with no modification whatsoever. Dell restore disks contain just the OS, all the other crap is on another disk. Later operating systems and Toughbook models I can't say, haven't tried. I just don't want anyone to think you NEED to fiddle with the image to install it. You will then need to load all of the Panasonic drivers of course. You must, of course only do this on a machine with an XP COA, we don't endorse software piracy here.
CAP

 

Thank you Cap for adding that.