Cleaned my D901C and now Windows XP won't startup normally

Yesterday I did a routine inspection/cleaning of my D901C. I unplugged the AC adapter and removed the battery, and then I took off the cooling vent cover, the hard drive bay cover, and removed the CD/DVD burner.

There was hardly any dust inside the computer so I ended up not needing to clean it at all. So I reassembled it and double checked everything was put back properly. When I fired up my system, after the Windows XP boot screen finished, Windows never loaded. It just sat there with a blank screen and no HDD activity.

I was a bit puzzled, and tried again...but to no avail. Then finally on my 5th try, Windows magically loaded up! I played games on it for a few hours, and then I decided to restart it out of curiosity to see if the problem still persists. Sure enough, it did, and now Windows doesn't want to load anymore!? Safe mode boots up just fine, but "normal" boot or "last known good configuration" don't work.

Bottom line: How the heck can a Windows installation get corrupted by just opening up my computer?! I didn't end up even cleaning it, just removed the battery, the covers, and the CD/DVDburner.

Any ideas?

 

How it broke? Likely that you may never know, but it sounds like you jarred your hd, but who knows computers are fussy machines. Fixing your computer sounds simple. Boot into safe mode with command prompt, or just command prompt and type "chkdsk c: /f" (replace c: with your drive if different) it will tell you the drive is in use and ask you if you want it to check the disk on restart, then type y or yes. When you restart windows should check the disk as well as repair any errors. If this does not work try doing a repair install with you windows xp cd.

 

You must have touched the HDD connector somehow.

 

I would recommend to re-seat each item that might have been loose or not connected properly.

 

I Just installed SP3 RC1 (in safe mode) since I was planning on trying it out anyways. It seems to have fixed the problem, since windows loads up now. I suppose a repair install or chkdsk scan might of solved the problem as well...who knows!?

The only part I removed from the computer was the CD/DVD drive, and I tried reseating it before but it didn't help. So I guess it might of just been a software issue. Thanks for the help!

 

nice man.

In any case, can you give me a wPrime 32M score for your system with SP3??

Link here, if you want to get credit for it

Thanks.