My laptop won’t boot beyond the initial splash screen with manufacturers name and ‘press ESC for startup menu’ message.

No lead up to this, just refused to boot tonight… Tried ctrl-alt-del, F8, F7, ESC etc and nothing does anything.

Ideas from the resident experts please?

Odds are there’ll be an error message behind that splash screen that would help immensely.
Normally you get a RAM check at that stage so it *could* be its failing at that.
But to be honest, an Internet diagnosis would be impossible without further info.

try holding down f2 during boot…that or del. should give you the bios screens. check the c drive is visible.

Whatever I press, it won’t go beyond the splash screen.

got a cd or floppy in there ?

Nope, no boot disc available either 🙁

In my (limited) experience an error ‘that early’ in the boot process is usually memory related. Depending on the machine you may be able to access the memory chips through a screw on panel on the bottom. Remove cover check all in place (remove and refit – could have moved in ‘transit’).

Do you have a manual or can you google the model number and download one. The laptop may have a recovery partition accessed by holding down a particular key during boot.

If you cant access the bios, problem is probably hardware

That’s what I thought. Hopefully not HDD….

Press Esc immediately to clear the splash screen; should give you more info.

Left a USB key plugged in?

Even if your HDD is knackered the bios should still be accessible so I doubt its this, more likely memory as said above or something more fatal unfortunately.

Remove power lead and battery. Remove memory as per Poly’s instruction, give it a couple of minutes then refit memory, battery and lead

OK, RAM removed, refitted and replaced with known good stuff. Same results…

No USB key or extraneous devices. Keying ESC during boot does nothing 🙁

Wonder if the HDD is farked?

Make and model of laptop? HDD shouldn’t do it.

OK, I’m in. Left it on the splash screen overnight and when I came back to it this morning, I had the ‘press F whatsit for thingamybob” menu up. I did and got in. Now copying all my data off…. 🙁

I tend to think it’s the motherboard as it’s not getting into the boot sequence but the HDD content is completely viable/accessible. Excluded the RAM too as I’ve tried known good stuff with the same results.

Any thoughts? And thanks for the suggestions.

There’s not a key stuck on the keyboard is there? If you can get in to BIOS, try and disable the splash screen.
Try booting without the keyboard plugged in to the motherboard.
There’s a possibility like you say it is the motherboard.
Where abouts are you?

How old is it. In my experience of about 25 laptops (ab)used by my family and employees over the last 12+ yrs the realistic lifetime is 5-7 yrs. However anything over 3 yrs old that develops a fault that can’t be fixed easily (you seem to have covered the bases) is rarely worth fixing.

I assume you have googled the make model of the laptop and “wont boot” as if it is a common fault there will be a known solution.

I’ll try disabling the keyboard but that may just introduce another ‘fault’ as it’s a laptop. I’m in Cambs BTW.

The PC is over 3 years old and is just an HP cheapie. It’s earned it’s keep. Just two things stopping me replacing it; I HATE setting new PC’s up and I was concerned about losing some of my data. I think I’ve covered the latter now as it’s all copied to a caddy drive. No option with the former just MTFU 🙂

Thanks for your help everyone. It does help having spares around (and this nasty fruit based product I’m using now). In the old days when we had just a single PC in the house it would be a major PIA.

I had the ‘press F whatsit for thingamybob” menu up. I did and got in. Now copying all my data off….

I tend to think it’s the motherboard as it’s not getting into the boot sequence but the HDD content is completely viable/accessible.

Sorry, I’m not clear on what you’re saying here.

The “thingy” message would be helpful; presumably it was something like “press F2 to enter setup” but it’s possible that right before that there was another message giving more information.

You then “did and got in” – got in to what, the BIOS? It sounds like you then managed to get Windows to load, but you say it won’t boot?

Could really do with a better description of exactly what you’re seeing, to be honest.

Sorry Cougar, worst sort of User here….

I initially had a text message saying ‘press esc to start’. I pressed ESC, del, enter, ctrl-alt-del, all the F’s etc without any reaction. This first happened earlier this week and has been hung at this start screen each time I’ve switched it on. I then left the machine at this screen overnight. I came back to it this morning with another message saying press Fn for this Fn for that etc. I selected the Fn to start ‘or something like that’. Windows 7 then started normally. I then disabled all the auto updates and power management stuff (anything that would cause the machine to reboot) and copied my data off onto another drive.

Does that make sense? Thanks again for your help.

<nods>

If you could get it to do it again and copy the text verbatim from the option you picked, that’d be helpful to narrow down where it’s getting legged up.

Doing a disk check might not be a bad idea. Right click the C:\ drive in explorer, Properties, Tools, Check now. Tick the first box but not the second, then reboot when prompted. Assuming you can get it to boot, anyway.