[CompaqUser]

Hi All,

Having a little problem with my laptop, it will boot up with BIOS, but when transferring over to Windows, i get the little scrolling bars at the bottom of the screen, then i get a plain light blue screen, and the 'Startup Repair' screen comes up. When Startup Repair is finnished i get the message 'Windows Cannot Repair This Computer Automatically'. Under 'View Diagnostic And Repair Details' i get the following message

'Startup repair has tried several times but still cannot determine the cause of the problem'

When i try to do a 'System Restore' i get the following message

'Your computer is running in a ''Limited Diagnostic State'' If you use System Restore in this limited state, you cannot undo the restore operation'. Only problem is, all boxes are greyed out except 'Cancel' so won't let me proceed any further.

I don't rember changing anything in BIOS, but went in and reset to Default Settings just in case, no change.

If it helps, my Laptop is as follows

Compaq Presario F500 (GH835EA#ABU)

System Board: 30D3

Processor Type: AMD ATHLON 64 X2 Dual Core Processor TK-53

Processor Speed: 1700 Mhz

Total Memory: 1024MB

BIOS Version: F.18

Serial Number: CNF7274MWY

UUID Number: 434E43673237344D
5759001B2463D593

Unfortunately as a complete newbie, half of this doesn't mean anything to me, so i am hhoping someone more knowledgable can help, i don't really want to have to take it in too pc world, cos i have been told they are really crap.

Also, not sure if it matters, but the laptop won't power on with the battery, only if the power lead is connected.

Thank you all in advance.

Simon

[Muffin Man]

do you have your windows installation disc? if you do, you might be able to make some repairs with it.

even better would be if you didnt have many important files saved, you could try a fresh installation.

[Saxon]

You will most likely have to do a repair install, I am moving this to the windows area as you will get more help there.

[Mak213]

It is Windows Vista. There is no Repair option. Only a format and reinstall will work. Might be able to try a inplace repair install.

techwalker: Repair Install in Vista

[CompaqUser]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your replies, Unfortunately i do not have the install disks, when i brought the laptop, everything was stored on a partition on the harddrive. Before now, whenever i had a problem, i just backed up my data, and did a clean install straight from the hard drive. Now when i try that, It goes through the usual of 'Recover your computer to its factory condition' - 'Reformatting windows partition of your hard drive disk' - 'Reinstalling original content' - Recovery is complete'. My laptop restarted automatically, but still went stright in Startup Repair after boot up. This time the Root Cause found was ' Failure while setup is in progress'. How do i find out what that failure was?

Thanks
Simon

[Mak213]

Use Gparted to format the drive and then try the factory restore.

[CompaqUser]

Hi Mak,

I used GParted, which ran through doing whatever it is that it does, but then it came up with the following

* Available console tools: vim, partamage, testdisk, mc, ntfs-3g - Mount the disk: ntfs-3g /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows.

*WARNING: Never mount anything on /mnt! It would freeze the system. Use mkdir /mnt/mydir and mount on /mnt/mydir instead.

*X.Org: You need graphicalenvironment to start GParted. The Graphical environment configuration should have been done automatically. Unfortunately it did not, since you are back to the bash !
So please run forcevideo script, and you will be asked for video driver, and resolution.

VESA driver should always work, and 1024x768 resolution too. If needed, you can kill X by using ctrl+alt+backspace combination!

gparted ~ #



I hope this means something to you, cos its all greek to me.

Thanks
Simon

Ok, ignore what i just said, i foud the VESA and ran that, GParted opened and it found two drives, so i formatted them, now it doesnt do anything. I just get a black screen with the following

NVIDIA Boot Agent 232.T120
Copyright (C) 2001-2005 NVIDIA Corporation
Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation
PXE-E^!: Media test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting NVIDIA Boot Agent.
Operating System Not Found

Thanks
Simon

[Hefemeister]

You will now need to get your hands on a vista disk to use with the key on the sticker on your computer. Either from a friend or call Compaq for a replacement disk.

Unfortunately it sounds as if you formatted your primary and your restore partition as well.

[Mak213]

You didnt have to format the 2 drives. 1 of them was the Recovery Partition which was used to reset the system to factory settings. Which is why i said to format the drive, the current drive which had Vista not the other one.

You will have to get a Vista OEM DVD to use with your serial that is on the sticker on your system.

[CompaqUser]

oops, :o never mind, at least now i know i can start fresh once i get a new disk.

Cheers guy, especially Mak, i'll let you know whether i manager to **** anything else up when the disk comes in

Thanks
Simon