Question

Trying to boot my old compaq presario v2433au laptop.

It has win xp sp3 and ubuntu 9.04 dual boot.

So what happens now when I turn it on i get compaq boot screen i.e. press f10 to set up , press x to change boot process press f12 network boot. tried pressing anything at this stage- keyboard appears to not be taking input (nothing happens)

turned off from here, reboot now it goes to compaq boot screen, for 1 sec then, to new screen saying press f2 to continue or f10 to setup. pressing either does nothing, and it sits at this stage.

this is after, last week, the usb ports all died (suspect maybe shorted or overheated) it was still booting etc fine after this just no usb

so now im stuck with what to do. usually id just go ubuntu or ubuntu livecd and get my data and start again...but even if i have the livecd in, it doesnt boot. However, I can hear it reading the cd when it gets to the screen i mentioned, where its just f2 to continue or f10 to reboot.

think the old laptops pretty dead but is there anything I can do from here? not really essential data on there but wouldn/t mind getting it back.

any ideas??? thanking you in advance :)

Answer 1

Try holding F2 as you're booting it. It might be locking up after it displays that message, maybe if you can get it to recognize the key right away it will let you past that point.

You can also try plugging in another keyboard and see if it recognizes input from that.

Answer 2

sorry for posting like this but for some reason it wont let me comment.

if its the keyboard, what options do I have? there is no ps/2 ports and the usb ports are dead.

the keyboard connects to the pc through one of those ribbon (flat) connectors, so i dont know how i could retro fit that ?

Answer 3

remove the hard drive and see if it atleasts gets past that OR into bios. If you can do that. Maybe it might not be too far gone.