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blackpearl81 -> RE: PC question (10/7/2009 10:19:34 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Termyn8or
I have these three laptops, identical Gateways. One has developed a problem that makes it shutdown right away. You can't do anything because before you know it the thing has shut itself off.
I bought these things which were refurbs, so there are no restore disks, but there are instructions on how to make a restore partition. However that isn't going to happen because it shuts down so fast.
Now since I have multiple identical units can I somehow just clone the drive, OS and everything from one to another on the network ? Perhaps using Norton Ghost or something similar ? If so, how do I prevent it from booting into Vista so that it doesn't shut down ?
Or am I better off ordering the restore disk ? Nice thing about that is it would work on all three of them, four actually - my sister took one.
Right now I am figuring it's a software problem because it does say something about a fatal error before it shuts down. They were purchased in May of this year so if it is a hardware problem I can probably send it back. Wouldn't be the worst deal in the world, they are out of this model so would have to send me something better. That might be hard to find though, I bought these because most of the numbers are equal to my tower and they have all the bells and whistles. Besides all the normal stuff they have built in webcams, wireless and dual layer DVD burners. Not to mention the 17" wide screen that I can actually almost see. The price was really right as well. The fact that they are all the same is a plus, like if one of the chargers gets damaged, I have one to use at least. I got two at the house and one at the shop, and am slowly getting used to Vista. But what I don't know is how to fix Vista.
I'm still leaning towards a software problem. Somebody did something that made it work, and once it did it kept working. It would recover from sleep mode and everything, this problem is just on a cold boot. Also, when it does boot the webcam controls don't show up.
Actually if Vista has a safe mode and restore points like XP, I would be willing to give that a try, provided I can get it to boot. The problem is I don't know how to get to it as of yet.
Any ideas ?
T
Is the laptop actually shutting down? (as in, powering itself off) or is it restarting itself over and over?
Most OS's have the ability to get into "safe mode" - where it loads up the bare minimums needed to get to the desktop. I don't believe it's changed w/ Vista, but you can access the boot options by continually pressing F8 while the computer starts up.
You have to continually press F8, because there's only a small window (2-3 seconds) where the key will register and activate the menu options.
Once it registers, you'll come to a screen where it says "Windows Advanced Boot options menu" and you'll have several options:
Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Network Support
Safe Mode with Command Prompt
Normal
Normal with Boot Logging enabled.
Now, safe mode will load the bare minimums needed to make it to the desktop - no sound drivers, no network drivers, no video drivers (it uses the "generic" video driver thats packaged in with Windows)
I'd highly reccomend this first.. This can help you isolate it from being a hardware or software problem. If you can get into the desktop in safe mode, there's a really good chance that it's a piece of software (driver, application, whatever) thats causing the error/restart/shutdown.
Safe Mode w/ Network support does the same thing as "regular" safe mode does, except it turns on your network card/drivers.
Safe Mode w/ Command prompt does the same thing as "regular" safe mode does, except you do it through typing out commands (not for the faint of heart)
Feel free to post back and let us know if you were able to get into the system via safe mode.
Hope this helps.
BP
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