Laptops/Notebooks

[ksl]

Been out of touch for a while now on laptops, Although I have acquired a brand new compaq, dual core, that was dropped in the UK.

The warranty not covering, the accident, I decided to buy for 20£ and repair it myself.

When i started up, all it could do would do was to keep booting itself, I checked the bios in setup and could see, that it couldn't see the hard disk, There was also a diagnostic check in setup for the harddisk, this showed failure.

I tried without success to reinstall backup from the partition.

I purchased a new hard disk, and still the bios cannot, read it, so I guess the bios chip is damaged to. Not bothered because I can replace a new and updated motherboard, because the V6000 series comes in many models.
However I find it a real pain, that no hard recovery disks are given anymore, and one should boot from a partition!

The other pain, is that brand names like Acer and compaq are putting there own software management programs on, which appear to be crap and slow the machines down no end. I have seen several new laptops, that are unbelievable slow on startup, and these guys are not even connected to the internet yet!

I thought to myself, what a waste of money buying these very cheap notebooks at 800 to a 1000$ in UK, I wouldn't for one minute consider buying one, out of frustration, i wanted to throw them, I was so wound up, waiting for them to startup.

The neighbour had a powerfailure, and now her windows is corrupt too, and will not start, again no disc, and not even a partion.

I decided to FDISK and reload xp instead of the windows media, although its loaded, and I can see all the files from DOS, I guess the bios chip is knackered! Still I guess i can replace the board when i get back to Singapore cheaper than i could in UK.

My point is, are many people here having problems, with the new idea of having the windows or backup files on a partition, finding that the laptops are very easy corrupted, and making it impossible to get into safemode.?

[bigfilsing]

Completely agree.

I've used IBM laptops for years now and it's the same story. They do have a function to create back up cd/DVD's thou.

I find it hard to believe the BIOS chip is damaged. Usually they either work or don't. Nothing inbetween. The first function in the architecture is to check themselves and I/O pins ( power, sync, batt back up etc) Check the IDE bus is way down the list. I doubt very much it's a damaged bios, certainlu not from physical damge ( a drop)

Could it be they have a OEM hard disk only check ???

KSL you realy should try a LINUX live disk. Ubuntu is really something nowadays. and free.
Downlaod an ISO ...burn a live cd and your done. At least you can boot the laptop and check the basic functions.
I've just managed to create an ubuntu bootable thumb drive so all the changes i make are saved on the thumb drive. ( not the case with a CD of course) it means if i get stuck somewhere ( i travel a lot) at least i can continue email etc from the thumb drive even if the hard disk has crashed.
Of course your laptop has to support booting from DVD and thumb drive but it works!!!

Good luck
PS changing the motherboard on a lap top ...good luck with THAT