HP Pavilion a6857c----startup issue

[JJLEE112000]

Hi,

I have a HP Pavilion a6857c computer running Windows Vista 64-bit. Yesterday It froze up, and I powered it down. But when I tried to power it up again, it went into a repeted cycle of booting and shutting down, all in a matter of seconds. Anyone has idea why might this be.

Thank you in advance for any suggestions.

Jeng

[Danjen]

Can you get into safe mode? If not, I would suggest you remove your drive and attach it to a another machine and run a check disk on it from the other machine.

[JJLEE112000]

I can't get it to safe mode. After startup, the computer shuts down almost immediately. And it repeat the sartup/shutdown continuously.

I've never done taking the disk out. Anything on the web that might show me a demo how to do it? And what do I expect from doing so?

BTW, thanks for your suggestion.

[Danjen]

I am thinking you have a corrupt file and in the hard drive's current condition, it can't do one (check disk) on itself. I think you would be better off if you can find a friend, teacher in a computer department at school, any one that is good with computers to help you do it.  You take off the case and remove the data cable and power from the hard drive and bring it to another machine with the case open and attach it to an available SATA connector using your cable if they don't have an extra and then plug in one of their extra power connectors.  You can leave the hard drive laying on the table as long as no metal can come in contact with the hard drives circuit board. You start the machine and use the operating system and hard drive of the host computer to run tests on your drive like check disk. You could also download the manufacturer's drive certification test iso image and make a bootable CD and use it to test the drive. That program can also fix bad sectors and some minor problems.  If check disk can fix the file corruption, there is a good chance that it will boot up when you put it back in your machine.

[JJLEE112000]

That sounds quite sensible. I will give it a try, and see what happens. Thanks once more.

[JJLEE112000]

I opened the computer case and found out that I have a WD Blue hard drive. As per your suggestion, I went to WD website, but only found this diagnostic tool "Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows". Other than diagnostics, I'm not quite sure this will help fix the corrupted file/bad sector problem. I couldn't find anything related to disk certification test or whatever iso image that I could use to create a bootable CD.

Am I on the right track here? Thanks.

[Danjen]

Yes, the data guard will fix the bad sectors.  Here is the page to download it and an explanation:

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=606&sid=3&lang=en

[Danjen]

http://www.laptopscreen.com/English/model/HP-Compaq/PAVILION~DV6T-1200~CTO/

Make sure this is your screen.

[JJLEE112000]

I finally got the SATA cable, and was able to connect the troubled internal hard drive as an external hard drive to a new desktop running Windows 7.

Even before I was able to run the diagnostic, I can see and access some of the directory list on the explorer window. Therefore I'm wondering whether the start-up problem has nothing to do with the hard drive, but instead was due to the motherboard problem (POST, BIOS, etc)?

Anyway, before I use the hard drive diagnostic, I was thinking to salvage all the files on the drive first. However, I don't have the access privilege now to the files that I saved (documents, photos, etc) on the drive. I clicked the folder where the files were save, and a window popped up with the message: "You don't currently have the permission to access this photo. Click the continue to permanently access this folder". After I clicked "continue", a flashing ring appearsed, and I have been waiting since then...

Do you have any suggestions?

[Danjen]

That would indicate that the hard drive does have problems because it is trying to apply current rights to the files and must be having trouble accessing them.