ryachri

My laptop does not past post. Goes gray screen after that. Also, never took notice before but the HDD light blinks for a little bit then totally disappears. Is that normal? Do I have a harddrive issue or a motherboard issue? OS is home vista. Please help with any suggestions. Need to recover data...tks.

TriggerFinger

If it does not past post (as it LCD turns gray), that means you cannot see BIOS settings screen even if it boots up to BIOS successfully. Three things come to my mind here. It could be a failing screen or a failing HDD or a bad motherboard (possible but slim). I suggest you try booting into BIOS settings first using an external monitor. If you can get (or see) it to boot into BIOS settings with an external monitor, it is possible you have a bad LCD. Still using the monitor, try booting into Windows. This will now tell you if your HDD is still good.

ryachri

Let me get things straight, this is her husband who did the t/s. I am pretty IT savy. I have already cleared the cmos to no avail. The hdd does spin up buts quits after a few secs. The screen displays properly in the bios and the toshibia splash screen, so I doubt it is the lcd. Laptop has been dropped many times by kids and had to repair the 12 v input. Unit was somewhat working fine until screen tended to freeze and problem gradually got my worse till will not boot into windows. All of my other computers converted back to xp. This unit will not boot off of recovery disc or my win xp disc so I would assume its the mb unless you have another theory. Thanks, William

TriggerFinger

Have you tried testing/replacing the CD/DVD drive? Are your XP discs original/genuine/no scratches? I ask because if it cannot boot from the optical drive it still could be the drive and not the motherboard. But then if you have done tests to rule the optical drive (or discs) out then I agree, it could be your motherboard.