Compaq Laptop won't boot to CD.

My Compaq Laptop with a one bay floppydrive/cdrom, one day, will not
boot up to windows 2000 Pro. It will not boot up to the install CD when
trying to reinstall window 2000. The laptop was originally Windows 95,
then later upgraded to 98 and now 2000. Even after I set the BOIS to
allow the CD-ROM to be the first to boot it will not see any bootable
CD. I don't have the restore CD.

The reason for reinstalling is because the operating system won't boot
up. It hangs. It will boot up to the boot diskettes. After running the
win2000 boot diskettes I choose "R' for repair but I get, "cannot find
hard drive." I'm trying to get to a command prompt so I can copy the
disks to the hard drive but not sure how to get into the command
prompt. What are some other ideas I can try? Thanks.

wrote in message
ups.com...
My Compaq Laptop with a one bay floppydrive/cdrom, one day, will not
boot up to windows 2000 Pro. It will not boot up to the install CD when
trying to reinstall window 2000. The laptop was originally Windows 95,
then later upgraded to 98 and now 2000. Even after I set the BOIS to
allow the CD-ROM to be the first to boot it will not see any bootable
CD. I don't have the restore CD.


snip

you need to go into the bios and see if you can re-detect the harddrive and
cdrom...

it appears that they both have not been detected.

If one device is detected only...
it's indicative of the other having failed...

otoh: if neither is detected...it may be a controller problem


the only good news is that if the controller failed...
your data on the HD is still there!

Additionally, it may be that you simply don't have a bootable CD in the
drive. The Windows 2000 Setup disk should be bootable but your disk might
be damaged.

You should be able to boot into DOS from either a floppy or CD.

--

- Gary Chanson (Windows SDK MVP)
- Abolish Public Schools



"philo" wrote in message
...

wrote in message
ups.com...
My Compaq Laptop with a one bay floppydrive/cdrom, one day, will not
boot up to windows 2000 Pro. It will not boot up to the install CD when
trying to reinstall window 2000. The laptop was originally Windows 95,
then later upgraded to 98 and now 2000. Even after I set the BOIS to
allow the CD-ROM to be the first to boot it will not see any bootable
CD. I don't have the restore CD.


snip

you need to go into the bios and see if you can re-detect the harddrive
and
cdrom...

it appears that they both have not been detected.

If one device is detected only...
it's indicative of the other having failed...

otoh: if neither is detected...it may be a controller problem


the only good news is that if the controller failed...
your data on the HD is still there!

"Gary Chanson" wrote in message
...
Additionally, it may be that you simply don't have a bootable CD in
the
drive. The Windows 2000 Setup disk should be bootable but your disk
might
be damaged.

You should be able to boot into DOS from either a floppy or CD.

--

- Gary Chanson (Windows SDK MVP)
- Abolish Public Schools


re - your signature ... in my town they want to "renovate" all 5
schools - cost = 285 million friggin dollars. Movin on out.

wrote:
My Compaq Laptop with a one bay floppydrive/cdrom, one day, will not
boot up to windows 2000 Pro. It will not boot up to the install CD when
trying to reinstall window 2000. The laptop was originally Windows 95,
then later upgraded to 98 and now 2000. Even after I set the BOIS to
allow the CD-ROM to be the first to boot it will not see any bootable
CD. I don't have the restore CD.

The reason for reinstalling is because the operating system won't boot
up. It hangs. It will boot up to the boot diskettes. After running the
win2000 boot diskettes I choose "R' for repair but I get, "cannot find
hard drive." I'm trying to get to a command prompt so I can copy the
disks to the hard drive but not sure how to get into the command
prompt. What are some other ideas I can try? Thanks.


Your hard drive is dead. Although you can try reseating it. My money's
on dead. Your CDROM probably died some time ago, or your CD media is
damaged/dirty. You can try cleaning the lens of the CD drive with
alcohol and a cotton swab. It's old enough, the leans may just be
dirty.

Your laptop is 8-11 years old. Drives fail.

wrote:
wrote:
My Compaq Laptop with a one bay floppydrive/cdrom, one day, will not
boot up to windows 2000 Pro. It will not boot up to the install CD when
trying to reinstall window 2000. The laptop was originally Windows 95,
then later upgraded to 98 and now 2000. Even after I set the BOIS to
allow the CD-ROM to be the first to boot it will not see any bootable
CD. I don't have the restore CD.

The reason for reinstalling is because the operating system won't boot
up. It hangs. It will boot up to the boot diskettes. After running the
win2000 boot diskettes I choose "R' for repair but I get, "cannot find
hard drive." I'm trying to get to a command prompt so I can copy the
disks to the hard drive but not sure how to get into the command
prompt. What are some other ideas I can try? Thanks.


Your hard drive is dead. Although you can try reseating it. My money's
on dead. Your CDROM probably died some time ago, or your CD media is
damaged/dirty. You can try cleaning the lens of the CD drive with
alcohol and a cotton swab. It's old enough, the leans may just be
dirty.

Your laptop is 8-11 years old. Drives fail.

Forgot to mention, the OTHER thing that dies on these is CMOS
batteries, and it forgets settings, like time, and boot order, and all
kinds of fun stuff, once disconnected from main power.

"- Bobb -" wrote in message
. ..

"Gary Chanson" wrote in message
...
Additionally, it may be that you simply don't have a bootable CD in
the
drive. The Windows 2000 Setup disk should be bootable but your disk
might
be damaged.

You should be able to boot into DOS from either a floppy or CD.

--

- Gary Chanson (Windows SDK MVP)
- Abolish Public Schools


re - your signature ... in my town they want to "renovate" all 5
schools - cost = 285 million friggin dollars. Movin on out.

Well, they're just looking out for the welfare of ...

...

the contractors.

--

- Gary Chanson (Windows SDK MVP)
- Abolish Public Schools

wrote:

Your hard drive is dead. Although you can try reseating it. My money's
on dead. Your CDROM probably died some time ago, or your CD media is
damaged/dirty. You can try cleaning the lens of the CD drive with
alcohol and a cotton swab. It's old enough, the leans may just be
dirty.

Your laptop is 8-11 years old. Drives fail.

The hard drive is old and failing but I would want to try revive it. It
has worked for many years until it was upgraded to windows 2000 Pro
then only a few days later it will boot up halfway into windows and
then hangs.

I have a startup disk for windows 98 and boot disk for windows 2000 and
both have failed to open into the command prompt. I've have had
windows 2000 hang like this before on a brand new hard drive and it
turns out the solution is to load the startup disk and run chkdsk. How
do I run chkdsk?

Thanks

Gary Chanson wrote:
"- Bobb -" wrote in message
. ..

"Gary Chanson" wrote in message
.. .

Additionally, it may be that you simply don't have a bootable CD in
the
drive. The Windows 2000 Setup disk should be bootable but your disk
might
be damaged.

You should be able to boot into DOS from either a floppy or CD.

--

- Gary Chanson (Windows SDK MVP)
- Abolish Public Schools



re - your signature ... in my town they want to "renovate" all 5
schools - cost = 285 million friggin dollars. Movin on out.


Well, they're just looking out for the welfare of ...

...

the contractors.

--

- Gary Chanson (Windows SDK MVP)
- Abolish Public Schools


Whose welfare are private schools looking out for?

John

retitled subject - it won't boot anything - right ?

wrote in message
snipped

The hard drive is old and failing but I would want to try revive it.
It
has worked for many years until it was upgraded to windows 2000 Pro
then only a few days later it will boot up halfway into windows and
then hangs.

1. Any data on there you care about ? If so get an adapter and move the
drive to desktop PC.
2. Win 95 !! - what model laptop ? what specs ?
3. Is this a replacement disk drive ? My reason for asking is BIOS may
not recognize a drive over 2gb and if you just popped in a 10gb drive,
the PC may not see it.
4. did you format hdd ? or upgrade OS ?
5. So was Win2000 fully installed successfully?
a. Using MSFT CD or Compaq ?
b. You found all the drivers ?
c. and it was working for a few days ?
6. if you boot a win98 floppy disk, can you then "get to C" ?
A:\ " dir c: "
or
A:\ " CD C: "