IT help?
 

Stupid laptop won't work - "boot device not found". And I know it's stupid to have a vista laptop with a win 7 upgrade, but that's what I have.

My question is which disk should / can I use to try and recover?

1 - application and driver recovery cd; or
2 - vista system recovery CDs; or
3 - win 7 upgrade disks.

I'm not really the beat with the os stuff.

Thanks in anticipation.

Re: IT help?
 

Reset to vista and leave there. both are as bad as each other

Re: IT help?
 

Cheers, trying that. Think it's completely shagged tho. Keeps telling me it's running on battery power so can't restore. Only way I can convince it it's on mains is to take the battery out. :-(

Re: IT help?
 

Sound pretty broken to me. I've dealt with lots of laptops like that. Some have parts of the motherboard failed, some just have corrupted files and are kicking up hell. Best bet, imo, is to try to format everything and start again. Best way of doing this is using the vista recovery disc.

Good Luck!

Re: IT help?
 

tommy would it be a dell by anychance??

Re: IT help?
 

Nup, it's a Compaq. And just a year and a day old. Perfect time to muck up (although I'm sure warrenty doesn't cover for this kind of crap).

Well, luckily all my important files (and for important read itunes, old uni assignments etc) are copied to a HDD. Just got the pain of a reformat, then sorting through 25GB of music......again.

Anyone know if gadget insurance through the bank covers system failures? Or might a trip down the stairs be in order?

Re: IT help?
 

Sounds to me like the HDD has crapped out. The boot device should be the HDD, if it cant see it then either mobo or HDD is broken. Can you hear it spin up when you start it?

BTW windows 7 is great! :)

Re: IT help?
 

+1 to all of that

a new HDD is cheep, so you might as well try that, if its a no go then turn the new hdd in to an external HDD

Re: IT help?
 

hmm... chances are it wont, but, that's not to say you couldnt get a an insurance write off leter for that perticular laptop and just either buy a new one or repair the current (note you wont be able to claim for it again on the same laptop if you fix it).

I can do an insurance letter if you want, just drop me a pm and i'll let you know what i'll need.

Re: IT help?
 

Carp... It started working, then stopped. Tried to restore, got 2 hours in and it failed. Might have to go for a desktop next time.