Problem booting laptop.

[steviecuk]

Hello,

I am having problems with a HP pavilion ze5700. It just won't boot, on turning it on the lights on the top of the keyboard come on and it sounds like it's constantly trying to read from the cd drive. however there's no disk in the drive and when i use a paper clip to open the drive it still won't boot.

Any suggestions? I'm thinking a bios problem maybe?. This happened after a couple of weeks of it not being used.

Many Thanks,

Steve.

[SaumiilB]

just check if the caps lock and num lock light is blinking or not?????

try booting in the BIOS and check if the it comes up and if does then reset the BIOS defaults

[Knute]

Is there a pattern to the lights blinking?

http://bizsupport1.austin.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&taskId=110&prodSe...

Is it under warranty?

http://www13.itrc.hp.com/service/ewarranty/warrantyResults.do?admit=109447627+1286541891570+28353475

[steviecuk]

Thanks for the responses, however nothing is flashing and I can't boot into bios. It won't let me boot into anything at all. Could it be the bios battery? if so how do i replace this?

Many Thanks,

Steve.

[Knute]

Try doing a Hard Reset. You can do this by removing the battery and unplugging the AC Adapter. Then press and hold the power button on the laptop for about 30 seconds, then put the battery back in and plug in the AC Adapter and try turning it on again.

[steviecuk]

Hi,

Thanks again for the response, however i've tried this and am still having the same problem.

Cheers,

Steve.

[steviecuk]

Does anyone know if it could be the bios battery? And if so how do I replace it?

[Ya_Jake]

Hi steviecuk,

If your notebook wont  boot, try accessing the BIOS first and reset it to defaults. You can do that by pressing F10 during startup, right after you press the power button. Then press F9 to reset it to defaults. Also, make sure that the Hard drive is the first booting device in order before anything else.

The worst case scenario that I can see here is your BIOS being corrupted. In that case, you need to have your BIOS reflashed.

Cheers

[steviecuk]

Hi,

Many thanks for your response, however I've tried accessing the bios and it won't let me do anything. F10 doesn't seem to do anything and i'm not getting anything appearing on the screen.

It just seems to start the cd rom motor briefly, stop and then repeat.

i'm at a loss of what could be causing this. I can usually fix problems but this one has got me stumped!

If it is a case of reflashing the bios, where do i get the file etc. to do it with and what is the best way of doing it? I've done it before but some time ago so would need a refresher!

Many Thanks again.

Steve.

[CharlesHP]

Since it is trying to boot from the CD, most likely, the hard drive is dead.

Just like the other posts said, one of the ways (the easiest way) to check hard drive error is boot to bios.

On most recent HP computers, F10 is the key to press to enter bios, but you have a relatively old system, and the key maybe not F10 - when you first power it on, do you see any message at the botton left corner something like "Press F10 to enter bios" or similar? it could be ESC, or F2 or something?

Anyway, try hit F10 repeatedly after power on, maybe 3 - 5 times, by the time the system is trying to boot the CDROM, you already past that point. If F10 doesn't work, try ESC or F2. Note, we are refering the top row function keys that marked as F1 - F12.