ASUS Laptop not loading windows

[richardf77]

I have a 3 year old ASUS X5DIJ series laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit sp1 (upgraded from vista equivalent). it runs IE 9 Norton 360 5.0 and has AOL 9.6 internet software installed.

For some time it has expereinced the random/intermittent problem of 'clicking fits' which freeze up the machine, requiring manual switch off and restart. various scans and virus checks came up with nothing and the machine can work fine for days sometimes between episodes. Today however after one such clicking episode it will no longer load/boot windows. The BIOS loads fine but after displaying 'Starting Windows' screen just goes to a black screen and mouse pointer (moveable). Nothing will change this (Control Alt Delete included) an the machine has to them be turned off manually.

I have tried loading the recovery discs i created when upgrading to Win7, the windows 7 installation disc and the original Vista recovery discs to no effect, the discs try to load but cannot and the same black screen returns.

I am wondering what the problem might be and how/if i can fix it. I am suspecting hard disc failure/problem, but as this has never happened to me before i do not know for sure. I am hoping it isnt as serious as this.

Please ask if you need any more info. Thanks.

[Salmon Trout]

Do you mean you hear a clicking sound from the laptop when these freezes happen? This is often a sign of a failed hard disk. (The "click of death")

[richardf77]

Do you mean you hear a clicking sound from the laptop when these freezes happen? This is often a sign of a failed hard disk. (The "click of death")

Yes the clicking started and the PC froze up. Could work again fine afterwards but not this time around.

[quaxo]

As Salmon Trout said, one would assume the clicking is coming from the hard drive. It has likely failed.

Sometimes they'll work for a bit after the clicking starts, then fail completely. This sounds like what you're describing.

[Salmon Trout]

If the clicking is from the hard drive, it has failed.

[richardf77]

So if the HDD has failed, i guess the only options would be to either replace the PC or the HDD. How easy would it be to replace the HDD and reload windows? As far as i can work out its a SATA type drive, 500GB. Seems a shame to chuck the whole machine if its just the HDD thats failed. The rest  of the machine seems fine.

Thanks again

[Salmon Trout]

Well, a quick Google shows used ones on Ebay for around $200. A 500 GB SATA drive for a laptop costs around $80. They are easy enough to fit, and if you have proper install disks you can reinstall Windows. Whether you want to rescue this machine or get a new one is your decision.

[richardf77]

Thanks. Been looking at new HDDs. Not sure which make to go for. Any recomendations. Been on amazon and Toshiba HDDs have good reveiws.

So it should be fairly easy to load windows onto a new drive then? I have a manufacturers (asus) windows 7 upgrade disc as well as home produced recovery discs. I am guessing the Asus supplied windows disc will do the job?

[Salmon Trout]

Thanks. Been looking at new HDDs. Not sure which make to go for. Any recomendations. Been on amazon and Toshiba HDDs have good reveiws.

So it should be fairly easy to load windows onto a new drive then? I have a manufacturers (asus) windows 7 upgrade disc as well as home produced recovery discs. I am guessing the Asus supplied windows disc will do the job?

An upgrade disk? Upgrade from what? To what? An upgrade disk generally will only work if it finds a qualifying product, for example a Windows 7 upgrade disk will look for a previous install of say Vista or XP. Not just that but there are "upgrade paths" so you cannot upgrade a Vista Home Basic install to Windows 7 Professional. If you have a blank disk it will ask for a qualifying product install disk. So what are these home produced recovery disks? Do they contain a system image (Windows 7 or what?) or do they work with a recovery partition (which won't be there anymore if you use a new disk).

 

[richardf77]

To 'salmon Trout'  Sorry i should have been more clear. The laptop originally came loaded with Vista but as this was just before 7 came out got a free upgrade to 7 later on. This is the 'upgrade disc' i referred to above. Looking at it again i am not so sure it is what i need to load 7 onto a new HDD, although when the OS got corrupted by virus last year and i used the disc to restore the OS, i recall clearly being given the option of recovering the existing installation or reformatting the drive and installing a fresh copy of 7 on the machine. I think this is what i was hoping would allow me to use it to install 7 on a new HDD.

I also have 3 sets of home made system recovery/system image discs. One for the original Vista OS, one for & made when i upgraded to 7 and a third made when i had to reload/recover the OS last year.  I think these also allow for reformatting and fresh installation as well as reload/recovery of existing installation. If direct installation of 7 to a new hdd fails then might it be possible to go back and 'restore' vista to a new hdd and then upgrade to 7 as if it were the old hdd? In effect 'copying' the original HDD? I hope this makes sense. Still not quite 100% with the right terminology.

[Salmon Trout]

when the OS got corrupted by virus last year and i used the disc to restore the OS, i recall clearly being given the option of recovering the existing installation or reformatting the drive and installing a fresh copy of 7 on the machine.

I believe it offered you the choice of installing a fresh copy of Windows 7 because it found a qualifying product (Windows 7 itself or Vista). This would not be present on a new (blank) hard drive. However it would not hurt to try this first.

If direct installation of 7 to a new hdd fails then might it be possible to go back and 'restore' vista to a new hdd and then upgrade to 7 as if it were the old hdd? In effect 'copying' the original HDD?

I rather think this is the likeliest outcome. However try the recovery disk sets in reverse time order, i.e. the most recent one first, as it sounds as the 2 most recent ones may restore W7, and use the original Vista one as a last resort if the others don't work. Then you would apply the Windows 7 upgrade.

I hope this makes sense. Still not quite 100% with the right terminology.

It makes perfect sense. Your grasp of the terminology sounda absolutely fine to me.

[jason2074]

I am suspecting hard disc failure/problem

I wonder if you have confirmed this by connecting the hard drive to another computer using a USB to IDE/SATA enclosure? Just to make sure the blackscreen are related or not.

[richardf77]

I wonder if you have confirmed this by connecting the hard drive to another computer using a USB to IDE/SATA enclosure? Just to make sure the blackscreen are related or not.

No i havent as i dont have the required enclosure/connections. I am guessing what i would need is a standard case used to turn an internal HDD into an external HDD?

[richardf77]

Just wanted to give an update on the problem. Havent done much about it since last posting but have recently got back to it again.

Current Situation; HDD aparently bust, recovery options no go. Bootable discs including manufacturer, home made recovery and a LINUX OS boot disc will not boot up the machine. Suspecting some other fault (with Optical Drive?).

Started looking into narrowing down the problems. Wanted to try in turn HDD and optical drives from another machine but both were incompatible. Thought about External Optical drives, either convering one from another machine or getting a ready made one. Got confused as to what to get so set aside idea for now.

I then remembered that Linux OS downloads could be installed on a USB stick drive and used to boot a PC. This would bypass the OD and get the machine booted. This i have done and it worked A1. The machine worked well booted from the stick and i was able to access the PC's HDD contents with no problem at all, so can easily recover the files at least.

This has left me confused though. If the HDD is kaput, how come i can access the files on it using USB booted Ubuntu OS? Does this mean the problem is not a HDD failure? What about the optical drive, does this test prove that is bust or again some other problem? Could the fault be software and not hardware?

Dont know what to do now. Should i try installing Ubuntu to the HDD and see what happens? Is there any way i can try to boot/reload windows without using the HDD or optical drive? Is it worth trying the drives (as external devices) on another machine?

Can anyone advise me please?