JustInspired
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 226
- Location
- Kent, United Kingdom
Toughbook comes in with bad hard drive - did DDRescue and managed to rescue 20GB of the 80GB IDE drive. No problem; customer doesn't have any data to save. ** This is an XP machine that runs special software for diagnosing older vehicles **
Next thing I tried:
Next thing I tried:
(Edit/Add) Next thing I tried:
Next thing I tried:
So, I can give the unit back to the customer with the USB stick and say "here, you need to keep this plugged in for it to start up" or....
Anyone had an issue like this before?
Thanks in advance.
- Found a nice replacement IDE hard drive in our cache, boot Parted Magic, check with GSmartControl - All good.
- There's no CD drive so I create an XP Pro OEM SP3 USB installer with Rufus.
- Boots USB fine, installs XP fine, updates and drivers install fine.
- Remove USB stick, laptop does not boot - black screen with 'flashing dash cursor' (remember the old Dells?)
- Plug USB stick back in, wait for 'Press any key to boot from USB...' to finish, boots XP fine from hard drive. Test again with and without USB plugged in - same thing.
- Assume something got written to the USB that is needed to boot XP so booted to Recovery Console and ran the usual Fixboot, FixMBR etc - no change.
- Booted from Macrium Reflect USB and did the options to fix Windows boot problems (it's usually quite good at this). It detected the Windows installation, ran through the 'fixes' and reboot - same problem.
Next thing I tried:
- Booted Parted Magic and blew out the partition with GParted.
- Started XP installer (same ISO) from USB DVDRW drive.
- Takes absolutely ages to start (have seen this before with USB drives and installing Windows). Get to 'Press Enter to install Windows' in about 10 minutes.
- Press F8 to agree to EULA and BANG!! - Setup couldn't find any hard drives on this computer. (This is not SATA and the exact same ISO installs fine from USB stick!)
- Tried with two different USB optical drives - same result.
Next thing I tried:
- Bought a set of Panasonic recovery discs; all look fine
- Boot with external CD drive again with recovery disc 1
- Go through the motions of Recovery, answer Yes to everything.
- Recovery goes to light blue/green screen (blank) for about five minutes.
- Comes up with message saying Recovery complete, remove disc, reboot PC etc.
- Nothing happens so check and it has (a) Deleted the partition (b) Created a partition (c) Done absolutely nothing else - not even formatted it!
(Edit/Add) Next thing I tried:
- Took IDE drive out of laptop, hooked it up to my bench machine via IDE cable with 3.5" to 2.5" adapter.
- Ran XP installation
- Boots fine on the desktop
- Moved the drive back to the laptop - same black screen with blinking cursor.
Next thing I tried:
- A large bottle of Vodka (just kidding)
So, I can give the unit back to the customer with the USB stick and say "here, you need to keep this plugged in for it to start up" or....
Anyone had an issue like this before?
Thanks in advance.
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