Accidentaly pulled the plug on my laptop while it was doing an automatic update. Now when i power my computer on, it displays the compaq logo then the black screen with the cursor, then it says operating system not found. Someone suggested reinstalling the operating system but wouldnt that delete my harddrive? any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
computer question
- Thread starter aro-man
- Start date
same thing happened to me. If you have the original install disk you can try to restore, but you're most likely (like me) going to have to partition it and reinstall.
Yeah ive had this happen before, it was on my desktop, i had to use my recovery disks and yes i lost everything!!
Does it ever make it to the startup screen? I had this happen with the last windows update. It was constantly trying to install the update, and would get a couple seconds before it blew up. What I had to do was keep trying, and cancel the installation before my laptop shut down.
Computers usually throw that error when the system bios can't find an operating system to boot to. 99% of the time this indicates a failed hard drive. Take it to a professional and have them remove the hard drive and try to recover your data. You can also get into the bios and see if the system is seeing the hard drive. When the Compaq splash screen comes up you'll have to press a key to get into the bios (it usually says press F2 to enter setup) but it could be any number of different keys to get in, every manufacture is different. It'll either be esc, del, F2, F10 or F12. Once your in the bios poke around in the menus and see if you can find the section that contains the hard drive settings. (It's usually the first screen it opens to) But seriously, if you don't know what you're doing I wouldn't recommend trying to fix it if you have important data you need.
More than likely when you pulled that plug it fried your hard drive........sorry
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More than likely when you pulled that plug it fried your hard drive........sorry
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Frostyone;2345726; said:
I don't think it fried his hard drive. Do you remember exactly what kind of update it was? If it was doing something to any system files, then you might have removed power from the machine while it was updating THOSE specific files. To put it easily, if you stop a download in the middle you can't use the program. In this instance it isn't stopping something while a new program is being put on the computer, just changing one that is already there.
The best you can hope for is recovering your files, as they are still there regardless of what happened. If this is a PC, you are mostly likely just a messed up file in the boot kernel (I know, outdated terminology, but I'm old school and can't think of a newer term... lol) that is preventing the OS from starting up properly.
Just a word of advice, don't take it to the Geek Squad (oh god how I hate them). I've seen pictures from the vietnam war that are easier on the eyes than what the Geek Squad will do to your wallet.
Ok when you go to reinstall the OS you can choose to repair the existing OS files. Try that first.
it will say "repair existing copy" on the blue screen.
You may be able to patch the files and get it working again.
Always have your important files backed up on a flash drive or external hard drive.
Also it is very unlikely that your hard drive failed. A large percent of hard drives made today for laptops will sound a specific beeping sound to decode a hard drive problem. If you do not hear a new beeping.. your hard drive is very likely just fine.
it will say "repair existing copy" on the blue screen.
You may be able to patch the files and get it working again.
Always have your important files backed up on a flash drive or external hard drive.
Also it is very unlikely that your hard drive failed. A large percent of hard drives made today for laptops will sound a specific beeping sound to decode a hard drive problem. If you do not hear a new beeping.. your hard drive is very likely just fine.
went to the blue screen pheonix bios something but yeah, couldn't find my hard drive. It wasn't listed on the menus like it is on my other computer. I kept telling myself to copy my pictures and stuff to my external hard drive but being myself, I kept putting it off LOL!!! Guess it was to much work to click "copy to...." hahaha!