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- HP Community
- Notebooks
- Notebook Boot and Lockup
- Black screen display and blinking caps lock

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04-13-2020 12:27 PM
Screen is black when powered on. Blink code 3.5. Caps lock blinks slow 3 times and fast 5 times. I want to know my options to fixing this issue. I want to at least recover files. Your help is much appreciated
Note: Battery is internal. I have already tried hard reset and BIOS key combinations with no luck.
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Accepted Solutions
04-13-2020 02:57 PM
Most likely, the PC is experiencing a major hardware failure -- this is especially true if the CapsLock key is blinking or there is beeping.
Since the PC is a laptop, this HP thread describes the different blink and beep codes: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01732674?jumpid=reg_r1002_usen_c-001_title_r0001
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If you CAN, to find out the problem, you would need to be able run hardware diagnostics by pressing the Esc key repeatedly and then, when the HP Startup Menu appears, select Diagnostics (usually F2) and let it run.
If you can NOT do that, or if that does not work, then there is NOTHING more you can do by yourself -- and there is NOTHING we can do because we have no way of accessing your PC from here to run diagnostics or repair hardware.
--------------------
Your best bet for recovering data now is to do the following:
1) Remove the hard drive from the old PC
2) Purchase a USB-to-Hard Driver adapter kit (like the one illustrated below)
3) Connect the old drive to a working PC using that adapter
4) Try to retrieve the files and folders you want to save from the old drive and copy them to the new PC.
If this does not work, then you need to do the following:
1) Download and install this utility on a working PC http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/recover_data_in_3_steps_with_minitool_power_data_recovery_free_...
2) Run the data recovery utility to see what can be retrieved from the old drive.
If that tool does not find what you need, an alternative is Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva
And, if that does not work well, the best tool out there is this one, but only the trial version is free http://www.file-recovery.com/
I am a volunteer and I do not work for, nor represent, HP
04-13-2020 02:57 PM
Most likely, the PC is experiencing a major hardware failure -- this is especially true if the CapsLock key is blinking or there is beeping.
Since the PC is a laptop, this HP thread describes the different blink and beep codes: https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01732674?jumpid=reg_r1002_usen_c-001_title_r0001
--------------------
If you CAN, to find out the problem, you would need to be able run hardware diagnostics by pressing the Esc key repeatedly and then, when the HP Startup Menu appears, select Diagnostics (usually F2) and let it run.
If you can NOT do that, or if that does not work, then there is NOTHING more you can do by yourself -- and there is NOTHING we can do because we have no way of accessing your PC from here to run diagnostics or repair hardware.
--------------------
Your best bet for recovering data now is to do the following:
1) Remove the hard drive from the old PC
2) Purchase a USB-to-Hard Driver adapter kit (like the one illustrated below)
3) Connect the old drive to a working PC using that adapter
4) Try to retrieve the files and folders you want to save from the old drive and copy them to the new PC.
If this does not work, then you need to do the following:
1) Download and install this utility on a working PC http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/recover_data_in_3_steps_with_minitool_power_data_recovery_free_...
2) Run the data recovery utility to see what can be retrieved from the old drive.
If that tool does not find what you need, an alternative is Recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva
And, if that does not work well, the best tool out there is this one, but only the trial version is free http://www.file-recovery.com/
I am a volunteer and I do not work for, nor represent, HP