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Got a little Advent something or other. Turned it on this morning and all I get is the first screen with 'Advent' and 'Press DEL' and 'Press TAB' for something at the bottom left of the screen, then it goes to a blank screen with the cursor at the top left corner. Any ideas?
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Do you have anything plugged into a USB socket? If so try it with this device unplugged.
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DEL will usually take you into the setup (BIOS), try that and see if you can find the disk drive. Sounds like it might have taken a walk.
EDIT: I'm seconds behind Victor today...who makes a good point.
Last edited by: smokie on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 10:31
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Nothing in the usb socket.
I hit Del and got to the bios screen, and there I can see the hard drive Toshiba HDD, date, time etc. But now what?
I can hear a faint hum, but that's about it.
I switched it off last night, probably the first time for a few weeks, and before I did so i deleted AVG pc tune-up or something, because the free version had run out and it kept asking me if I wanted to pay for it.
Last edited by: Dave on Wed 7 Mar 12 at 11:16
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plug a pen drive or something into the usb port and in bios set first boot item to external/usb, and then try that. Obviosly it wont actually boot from the usb device (if theres no o/s on it), but it may bypass/kickstart the boot-up item its waiting for.
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Try tapping F8 key as it boots to see if it lets you get to the Safe Mode option and assuming it's Windows 7 there is a repair option there too.
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F8 doesn't seem to do anything.
I put in a USB stick and set it to 1st, so now it fires up and I get a windows 7 screen as it tries to load, but it won't go any further.
But in the 'boot' option, is says devices enclosed in parenthesis has been disabled, and Toshiba HDD is in parenthesis.
So booting it from a usb gets me further, but not much more.
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TRy going into Bios again then and loading "Default bios Settings" - remove any usb thingys from the usb sockets and try booting up again. if this doesn`t work, you may need to go for an external usb cd drive and use either a "live" linux disc to try and access windows folders to run some Anti-malware progs or chkdsk utilities, or you may reload win 7 from a win 7 disk.
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Well I did the default setting thing, and still nowt. My (uneducated) guess is the HD is goosed. There's not much data on it, just more worried about getting my emails and addresses back if possible.
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if it was workimg ok un til when you removed AVG, then the prob is likely to be software related, probibly caused by an incomplete uninstall, and not the HD thats knacked. If you can get into it by whatever means, it will most likely be fixable with a "clean-up" utility. You can get repair disks for peanuts on Ebay, with allsorts of usefull such utils on, I have one, and its been a great help over the years, it has mini xp on, which is a live cutdown version of xp, if you boot into this, you can run virtually any repair utility. Lot cheaper than forking out for a new drive!
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It's interesting that you say that, because when I uninstalled the AVG thing, it asked if I wanted to remove some backup files. I clicked yes, and it then looked for an internet connection. I wasn't connected to the internet at the time (just going to bed and couldn't be bothered to dial up again), and I can't remember what happened then! I think I cancelled it and went back to remove and this time clicked no. Ha, it was late and I was tired.
But sometime prior to this (and this is what prompted me to decide to switch it off for the first time in a few weeks, at least), was that I went onto a site, and suddenly it tried to run some video thing with media player. I closed that but the HD was whirring away and the download rate shot up. Suspecting something was amiss, I quickly pulled out the mobile dongle just in case something was up. I also ran a virus scan but nothing was found. Plugged the dongle back in and carried on as normal.
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Ah! - Sounds like you have interupted the installation of something by pulling the "Dongle", and corrupted some files required by this application at start-up, (possibly a root-kit virus).
You will have to gain access by "other" means (suggested) and run something like TDSS killer, Malwarebytes antimalware and Super antispyware, then run chkdsk /all from the "run" command. If this doesn`t help then it sounds like either finding and running the repair utility, or a reload of win 7.
hth
P.s
If it was AVG 2012 you were uninstalling, I believe this does look online for the "official" Avg removal tool whilst uninstalling, maybe it was this that was being installed? either way I think above is your way forward from here.
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>>I clicked yes, and it then looked
>> for an internet connection. I wasn't connected to the internet at the time (just going
>> to bed and couldn't be bothered to dial up again), and I can't remember what
>> happened then! I think I cancelled it and went back to remove and this time
>> clicked no. Ha, it was late and I was tired.
Most antivirus uninstalls direct you to their website so you can tell them why you are uninstalling their product and what you are installing in its place.
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Well I had a call from the repair place this morning to say there was nothing they could do and it was dead. We didn't do into details on the phone as I'm going there later today anyway.
It tried to start windows from a USB, so I guess that means one part is working. What do I need to ask them to make sure everything has been checked and exactly where the problem may lay?
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Get them to whip a fresh h/drive in it and reload win7! - cheaper than junking it, now that you`ve gone to the trouble of engaging a repair shop, might as well get something for your money.
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The problem is a hard drive repair can cost as much as a new netbook. Some of my charges have been up to £130 lately due to the higher costs of hard drives, and the time it takes to pack up data etc.
If there is no backup and you're not fussy about the hard drive size then it should be under £100 still but you might end up with a 160gb or less drive.
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I went to collect, and the guy said he thinks the motherboard is shot as he couldn't get it to do anything. I said 'think' or 'is' shot? He wasn't sure. I pointed out that I'd managed to get into Bios and boot it from the usb, so had he done that. But he said he couldn't get it to do anything. Ha, at this point I was starting to lose faith in them. So I fired it up and went to bios just to show him. So they're going to take another look. I must admit it worries me a little when I seemed to know more (after 10 minutes on a motoring forum) than they do.
But the job sheet also shows I asked them to try and save the email stuff. I asked him if he'd run the HD from something else to get my stuff back, but he hadn't.
Don't know if I've been unlucky or they're just useless. What I do know is, there will be a few stiff words when the bill is produced.
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Sounds useless and sadly they are too many many people in this business. We call them nuke and pavers. E.g they fix everything buy formatting everything.
Did he even try a different HD in it?
And yes if the motherboard had failed recovering your data should have been easy. There is a chance it is the hard drive controller on the motherboard which has failed, which would write the board off, and could perhaps damage the file system in the hard drive.
But from the sounds of it he was just useless.
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If you end up buying a new netbook, you can take out the hard drive from the dead netbook and put it in something like this www.maplin.co.uk/2.5-inch-hard-drive-enclosure-46678 . This will enable you to access it as an external hard drive. With a bit of expertise, you should then be able to get at what you need, although to be honest it is a bit of a fiddle to get emails etc. off - not a layperson's job! You'd need to find out the size of the hard drive to make sure you get the right enclosure. Just a thought.
Link should work now
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 15 Mar 12 at 01:13
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True but don't buy from Maplin. The cheapest way is to buy a 2.5" caddy for £6 off Ebuyer or even better a docking station, cost around £12. I have a few and never had a problem with any of them.
The hard drive should be 2.5" although some more expensive netbooks and some mini laptops did use 1.8" drives.
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>> True but don't buy from Maplin.
Do they have a Maplin near to Dave in Sweden? ;-)
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Update:
It's alive! Just like Jesus, it was pronounced dead, then mysteriously came back to life again.
I didn't speak to the guy that did the work, but they reloaded windows and managed to save my favourites and all the email stuff. The price came out at about £60, until I pointed out to them that I had to drive to town yesterday to pick it up, and then show them bios could be accessed. So settled at £50 all in.
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you can get the disk into a state (the master boot record screwed in a particular way) where it refuses to allow the bios to do its stuff.
Sometimes a full windows reinstall won't work either, you need to run the fixmbr utility first.
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Netbook won't fire up - Victorbox
