xlt_66

HP Pavilion dv8000: Has 2 hard drives Fujitsu MHV2100BH SATA Drives

Crashed one day for no reason.

Restarts, goes to prompt screen asking for Safe Mode, Safe Command, Safe Networking, Last Known, Start Normally

All of the Safe Mode configs it shows it going through a bunch of drivers then it freezes and starts the process over.

If I go to Last Known Good Config it just restarts completely.

If it choose start normally, the Windows splash screen comes up, the load bar goes for a bit, then I get a quick blue screen that i can't read in time and it starts over.

If I try to boot from an XP disc, it goes through loading a bunch of stuff but then says setup cannot continue because it can't detect any hard disks on the computer.

If I do a Primary hard disk self test, it fails. If I do a secondary hard disk test, it passes.

I pulled out the primary, put the secondary into its spot and left the secondary slot empy and tried to boot from XP disk and it did the same thing.

I tried to boot with a know good SATA drive and it still did the splash screen, blue screen, restart.

I can change boot order and enter setup.

Any ideas or suggestions?

dai

put the secondary back where it was and try booting from the xp disk

xlt_66

It does the same thing.

Windows Setup comes up, goes through a whole mess of "Setup is loading files"

Then I can either continue setting up windows, try to repairs windows, or quit without setting up windows. If I choose either of the first two, it tells me there are no hard disks installed and that setup cannot continue.

xlt_66

After I restarted, with Secondary in it's spot and primary missing, i got a blinking cursor for awhile then the message:

"INF file txtsetup.sif is corrupt or missing, status 12544. Setup cannot continue. Press and key to exit."

dai

it probably needs a driver loading with f6 when it asks when it is loading into ram
are you able to set the bios to see sata as ide

xlt_66

I took a video of the the blue screen after the splash screen.

I got an "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME"

*** STOP: 0x000000ED (0x86f4cc28, 0xc0000006, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

I'm not sure how to access BIOS. Can you explain?

dai

usually by pressing the del key during post

http://www.techsupportforum.com/cont...e/Tips/48.html

xlt_66

Okay, about the BIOS. That was a stupid question. I was just under the impression that there was maybe like an "advanced" section of the BIOS where I could control more. My BIOS screen literally only allows me to change date and time, enable/disable CD-ROM and LAN, change boot order, and do a quick diagnostic test on Primary and Secondary drives.

So, I've been trying to flash my BIOS with the current update. I have BIOS version F.13 for my HP dv8000t laptop and I guess I have never updated it and now there is version F.24 available from HP. However, here is what I can't figure out, is that HP supplies the new BIOS as a *.exe format.

How do I flash new BIOS when it is in *.exe format? From what I've read online, I need to make a bootable disc that will boot to DOS. Then, on this bootable disk I put something like awdflash.exe and then my BIOS file. However, my BIOS file is a little over 2MB, not fitting on my bootable disk.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Am I supposed to extract the *.bin file from the *.exe file somehow?

Please Help!

dai

check your manual laptops bios are usually updated from within windows
is the an option in the bios do disable the hp boot gui screen,doing this may give access to bios screens you do not see