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Mrs Red's laptop screen went blank then came up with this message



Serching for boot record from floppy.....not found
Serching for boot record from CDROM...not found
Serching for boot record from IDI-0......OK
Error loading operating system....


Tried turning off and on, same message. Help.

have you tried banging it with your fist ?

Yes, but that was before it went wrong!

(don't tell Mrs Red)

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Sounds to me like either your windows installation is corrupted or your hard drive has gone titsup.

Neither one would be good :(

Sounds like hard drive to me too, had asimilar problem a while ago.
:(

Hard drive, try changing the boot order.
I *think* you press F8 during startup and disable networking.

First i'll decode the message for you, it just means it tries to boot from floppy, then cd-rom then hard drive, are you sure it wasn't IDE-0 not IDI ? Anyway, it detects the hard drive ok but then can't load the OS. Did you actually smack the PC? That may have corrupted some files and messed windows up. I assume you didn't (but bad beats and laptops dont mix), the OS can just get corrupted by other software or if its just not your day and there is a write error in an important part of the OS.

To fix it you will need your windows CD-ROM. Hopefully you have a proper CD and not just a recovery CD that a lot of laptops come with. The good news is that the PC is already set to boot from CD-ROM before hard disk so you can put the disk in and don't need to change the boot order in the BIOS. Try the recovery console first and if that doesn't work a reinstall of windows.

From windows site:
1. Insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer.

Click to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted.  (Press Any key to boot from CDROM)
2. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
3. If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you must access from the Recovery Console. (probably type 1 then enter)
4. When you are prompted, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.
5. At the command prompt, type the appropriate commands to diagnose and repair your Windows XP installation.

For a list of commands that are available in Recovery Console, type recovery console commands or help at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

For information about a specific command, type help commandname at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
6. To exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type exit at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

OK, now the commands worth trying are:

fixboot and fixmbr (type fixboot then enter and follow instructions, i dont remember what exactly happens! then run fixmbr the same way)

after they have run, restart by typing exit and enter

hopefully that will sort out the boot files and windows will run. if not you will need to reinstall windows. just reboot from the CD again but instead of pressin r to run recovery console follow the instructions through to install windows, there is an option to repair you current installation which you can try if you want but that has never been successful for me before, so if you have any time restrainsts go straight for a new install.

Usally when i reinstall windows i format the PC, but this is only necessary if you had junk, adware, too many unused programs, startup items etc you want to get rid of. If you reinstall windows over the top without formatting then all your my documents will still be there (although maybe in an admin.old folder or something like that depending on your usernames). If you reinstall windows you will also need to reinstall all programs that you had before too, eg office, poker, paint shop pro, dvd players. even though you have not deleted the software they need reinstalling, which is why i usually format anyway.

Finally, whether you format or not, if you have anything you can't bear to loose, firstly, it should already have been backed up, but if it isn't then you want to get that backed up before you mess about with any of this, just incase! And its possible (although maybe not, sometimes windows just gets messed up) that your hard drive is starting to fail and if thats the case you need to backup all important docs/emails/photos/hand histories NOW.

This got a bit long, and i may have gone a bit off track. Let me know where you get upto and if you need more help!

No, I didn't smack it.

Thank you very much. I will have a go and report back tomorrow.

My bro has destroyed one laptop by slamming the screen down and close to it again on the new one. He does take his $5 SNGs seriously.

OK I confess, bout 2 years ago I broke my laptop hard drive by slamming it down on the table after a bad beat - so stupid!

::)

No names, but I know someone who smashed his laptop with a hammer following a bad beat in a big cash pot!!!!

AND, he had to fetch the hammer from the garage!!!  ;technophobe;

This is exactly why i bought a 10 quid inflatable punch bag from argos. Only lasted one pokerstars million but probably saved me a lappy!!!

Well, I've tried everything RichEO suggested, but all I get is a nasty clicking "broken record" type sound and the old same message.

Methinks the HD is cream crackered.

Thanks for taking the time to post such a comprehensive reply though.

 ;thankyou;

That sound means it probably is a physical problem with your drive, unfortunately.

If you are getting a clicking sound when you boot the laptop this usually means the cyclinders inside the hard drive are gone and the hard drive in layman's terms is knackered. A new hard drive wont be particularly expensive but you would need a copy of windows xp on cd and you would also need to be able to download the drivers for the laptop from the manufactorer's website. Once you have replaced the hard drive you could buy a cable to attach the old hard drive to a desktop pc to possibly get any data off of it. There's no guarantee that you will be able to access the data on the old hard drive though. If you need any more help drop me PM.

Thanks!

hmmmm, sounds to me like it is time to buy a new lappie.  Check out ebay.

A brand new laptop hard drive can be had for <£40 though, seems a waste to chuck the whole caboodle out...

Did you get into recovery console and log into the windows install? Did you try to reinstall? How far did you get / where did it fail?

You can go in to your BIOS and see if it can detect the hard drive. Its hard to tell you exactly what you need to do, but usually you hit the DEL key as soon as it starts up. If the BIOS can see the hard drive it's a good thing, if not then it's def bust. If you take the hard drive out and see what make it is, you can then go to the manufacturers website and download the diagnosis software, most have some. Run that and it will tell you if its dead or not. Then you can usually return the hard drive depending on who makes it, Seagate have a 5year warranty on theirs.

I assume the laptop is out of warranty?