# laptop wont start. i think i broke it



## bribrius (Dec 1, 2014)

a. the screen had been cracked for weeks, I use a monitor so didn't really care but this is important.
b. I was running out of room on the drive so decided to make room. tried disk manager to edit partitions it wouldn't let me. tried disk part and it kept asking for override to do it, put in override command it wouldn't take it. so ended up downloading easy partition or something to do it.
c. the operating I system is 8.1, but had it set up with Unbuntu as well.
d. in  easy partition I deleted out and formatted the unbuntu partition to unallocated. I also deleted another reserve partition I had. I left as follows
volume 1 1 unallocated (beginning of drive never use)
volume 2 ntfs winre partition
volume 3 ntfs boot partition
volume 4 8.1ntfs os partition
volume 5 recovery partition
I then extended volume 4 to max space the extra partition and Unbuntu now gone.


easy partition requested to reboot to perform changes. click okay reboot.

AND IT DIDNT START AGAIN and boot into the o.s. 8.1, just fan running, nada.
so restart and esc to bios (remembering I tampered with this when I installed unbuntu but not how, clicked restore defaults.
reboot, still don't boot.
restart again and esc to boot selection device, pick cdrom (already tried booting the recovery volume wont do that either just runs, and runs, and runs, but don't load anything). shove in a old bootable window xp cd. it just keeps loading, loading, loading, loading. but doesn't actually do anything.
I don't have a 8.1 recovery cd. figure that is the problems I haven't done much with computers since xp

so I go down to the store last night  (kind of pissed at this point) and buy another laptop, come home and get it online (8.1).
put in a usb drive and immediately do a backup recovery.
But the usb drive in the other laptop and turn it on.

and still NOTHING....
I am getting really ticked off.
just sayn. any help would be great.


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## Gary A. (Dec 1, 2014)

I think it's time to upgrade to a MacBookPro. (Gary ducks and hides.)


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## ronlane (Dec 1, 2014)

I'm with Gary. Mine has started to act up too and I've been warning the Wife that we may have to get me a Macbook pro pretty soon.


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## bribrius (Dec 1, 2014)

ronlane said:


> I'm with Gary. Mine has started to act up too and I've been warning the Wife that we may have to get me a Macbook pro pretty soon.


I just really haven't a clue on this one. I could ALWAYS get into the other windows platforms i had utility disks, bootable cds etc and i could always get in. This windows 8.1, not a clue. If it was xp i wouldn't be posting this right now. Even with Lenovo or the old thinkpads i could reflash them and get them going again. This thing... just ticking me off... i don't know how to fix it and that ticks me off..

the dead one is a hp, the one  bought is a hp. tried to come close to mimic the recovery cd. Only difference is the new one is touch screen too. Not sure if makes a difference like i said, i know jack about the new systems.


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## ronlane (Dec 1, 2014)

I understand. I bought my kids a Windows 8 machine last year and I try not to get on it. (That's why I'm going to macbook pro).

Trip to Best Buy Geek Squad?


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## sashbar (Dec 1, 2014)

If you have purchased some soft, let's say Capture one pro, or Topaz, or Lightroom for Windows and change  to a Mac from Win, can you download the Mac version? Or you need to buy it again?


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## Gary A. (Dec 1, 2014)

sashbar said:


> If you have purchased some soft, let's say Capture one pro, or Topaz, or Lightroom for Windows and change  to a Mac from Win, can you download the Mac version? Or you need to buy it again?


Typically, in the past,  if you contact the manufacturer of the program(s), they'll provide the Mac version at no cost.


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## 407370 (Dec 1, 2014)

ronlane said:


> I'm with Gary. Mine has started to act up too and I've been warning the Wife that we may have to get me a *Macbook pro* pretty soon.





Gary A. said:


> I think it's time to upgrade to a *MacBookPro*. (Gary ducks and hides.)



OH GOD NO DONT DO IT!!!!!!

You will choke on the restrictions of the MAC.


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## bribrius (Dec 1, 2014)

it would help if I could see, since I put the uefi on default  or whatever the hell it is, the external monitor don't even work It just flickers and goes out. course the lapop screen is cracked to hell and pretty much black.
so I am listening to if it is loading or not, and guessing.

two seconds, hit escape
f11 down enter.
listen.
nope.
reboot hit escape.
down key twice.enter.
reboot .
nope.
been doing this for about a hour, as I cant see not getting to far....


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## bribrius (Dec 1, 2014)

407370 said:


> ronlane said:
> 
> 
> > I'm with Gary. Mine has started to act up too and I've been warning the Wife that we may have to get me a *Macbook pro* pretty soon.
> ...


don't know. last I had one it was called apple and had  apple on it. appleIIc matter a fact. I think I was 8 years old and it was considered portable because it had a handle on it. Other than learning some BASIC language never really got to far with them old ones but I knew I liked it better than the commodore 64. After that I noticed the business world all went ibm so I followed suit. Mostly owned thinkpads. But you get kids,,,,expenses ad up. started buying thinkpads used and fixing them. Then got sick of that, starting buying p.o.s. dells new. Then went to hp.
I do have another dell kicking around I got for free because they couldn't get it working that runs windows 7 that I fixed.
And now this new one which is another hp. Nothing beats a Lenovo or (xibm) for me I probably should go back to fixing broken ones. But on the other hand, I haven't had a new one of them either in a while so they could be a cluster fruck now. I really am just out of the loop?????
Probably partially me, but also partially Microsoft I think. seems they are locking these operating systems down now like the macs are. And windows has never been totally stable but the good thing is we could fix and tweak it. Aint looking like that now.


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## bribrius (Dec 1, 2014)

ronlane said:


> I understand. I bought my kids a Windows 8 machine last year and I try not to get on it. (That's why I'm going to macbook pro).
> 
> Trip to Best Buy Geek Squad?


thinking I will let it sit until I figure out what to do with it.... it might be another one that ends up in the driveway with me running it over with my truck. Or target practice..

just sucks, as I had a lot of raws on there I don't have backups of as I wasn't backing up all the raw files....


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## ronlane (Dec 1, 2014)

bribrius said:


> just sucks, as I had a lot of raws on there I don't have backups of as I wasn't backing up all the raw files....



Ouch, that is what was bothering me. When mine first started acting up about a month ago, I backed all of my raw files up to my external HD. But got lazy and last night when it wigged out, I had some family portraits of some friends on there and no backup. I was lucky that it started working again and I immediately moved them to the external HD.


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## bribrius (Dec 1, 2014)

ronlane said:


> bribrius said:
> 
> 
> > just sucks, as I had a lot of raws on there I don't have backups of as I wasn't backing up all the raw files....
> ...


yeah, hadn't got that far. last backup said I didn't have enough room. I bought another external drive but it is still in the box, I hadn't gotten around to getting it going. lol Most of my stuff is backed up still so it isn't like I lost everything between cloud and the other externals I have the majority of it even if some are jpegs.

sucks spending all this time and headache on this stuff. I would so rather just take photos. That is the fun part.


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## bribrius (Dec 1, 2014)

hmmm. I have another junk hp around here too with a shot screen I bought the same year as this one that isnt working. keyboard is gone on it too.  wonder if I can swap the hard drives and keyboard and plug that into the external monitor? or are they made so cheap now a days they aren't unpluggable anymore?


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## tirediron (Dec 1, 2014)

Did you check for spark?  Prime the carburettor?


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## SpikeyJohnson (Dec 1, 2014)

The easiest way to get your data off your old machine would be to pull the hard disk out and put it in a dock or case that uses USB.  This will let you navigate it like you used to on the new computer.  When you copy your old stuff off you can then use the disk as a backup if it is stable.


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## W.Fovall (Dec 2, 2014)

wondows 8 has hidden boot sectors on drive. you need a windows 8 recovery cd to repair boot sector. also the bios can be locked to the factory OS so any tampering can cause it a no boot as Microsoft was getting tired of pirate win os copies...  put win 7 on it..


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## SpikeyJohnson (Dec 2, 2014)

You will still be able to put the hard disk in a dock and pull up the drive with a new computer.  I do this all the time to back up data from customers computers.  The OS does have hidden sectors but they have to do with starting and using that OS.  You can still navigate the other partitions via another computer and operating system.  I generally use Ubuntu to do this because it ignores permissions and shows all hidden items.  The bios can be locked to the Factory OS but that won't stop you from taking the drive out of the machine and connecting it to another computer as a "slave" which will allow your other computer to use it much like an external drive. 

Most laptops these days have the recovery "disk" on the hard disk as well.  If the laptop won't even start or is completely dead, this is out of the option and in order to get the files off the disk he will have to connect it to another computer for recovery.  The only thing that will stop him from getting the files off the hard drive if done this way is if the OS is encrypted which isn't an option unless you are using windows pro, enterprise or ultimate.  In these OS's you generally need to select that you want contents encrypted.  If this is his personal computer I would think it is running home premium and therefore this is a non-issue.


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## bribrius (Dec 2, 2014)

W.Fovall said:


> wondows 8 has hidden boot sectors on drive. you need a windows 8 recovery cd to repair boot sector. also the bios can be locked to the factory OS so any tampering can cause it a no boot as Microsoft was getting tired of pirate win os copies...  put win 7 on it..


Microsoft is full of commies... you pay for a computer you should be able to do whatever you want to it their licensing concerns should be their problem not the computer purchasers problem.
just for messing up my day I should work on pirating a windows 8 disc to hand out. Thing is even if I managed to no one would want it because everyone hates windows 8.


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## bribrius (Dec 2, 2014)

SpikeyJohnson said:


> You will still be able to put the hard disk in a dock and pull up the drive with a new computer.  I do this all the time to back up data from customers computers.  The OS does have hidden sectors but they have to do with starting and using that OS.  You can still navigate the other partitions via another computer and operating system.  I generally use Ubuntu to do this because it ignores permissions and shows all hidden items.  The bios can be locked to the Factory OS but that won't stop you from taking the drive out of the machine and connecting it to another computer as a "slave" which will allow your other computer to use it much like an external drive.
> 
> Most laptops these days have the recovery "disk" on the hard disk as well.  If the laptop won't even start or is completely dead, this is out of the option and in order to get the files off the disk he will have to connect it to another computer for recovery.  The only thing that will stop him from getting the files off the hard drive if done this way is if the OS is encrypted which isn't an option unless you are using windows pro, enterprise or ultimate.  In these OS's you generally need to select that you want contents encrypted.  If this is his personal computer I would think it is running home premium and therefore this is a non-issue.


I think Ubuntu is what got me into this, or rather, trying to remove the Ubuntu partition and dual boot.  it is home premium. I don't have a dock. Guessing putting the drive in he other hp is a no go if they are tied to the bios? explains why the recovery cd I made from the other computer didn't work in it as well. Thanks for the info. I still cant figure out why it wouldn't let me do it in disk part or partition manager right in the windows 8. Maybe it is locked somehow and when I forced the partition changes it did something.... Even override didn't work and I still cant wrap my head around that it is almost like it was locked. Maybe a antivirus lock or something ? it had Norton in it.


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## SpikeyJohnson (Dec 2, 2014)

Ubuntu is a very powerful tool if in the right hands.  Because it ignores many permissions it will let you ruin things though.  What I recommend is buying something like this: Amazon.com: Sabrent Ultra Slim USB 2.0 to 2.5-Inch SATA External Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure [Black] (EC-UK25): Computers & Accessories and putting the disk in it.  You can then boot up your new machine and just plug in the drive like you would a SD card reader or external hard drive and view the stuff and copy it off.  The docks work the same way but are more of a "professional" aproach where you aren't going to be moving the drive anywhere other than from the computer, to the dock on the other computer, and then back to the origional computer.  

An enclosure will let you keep using the disk after you are done saving all your stuff off it.


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## SpikeyJohnson (Dec 2, 2014)

Here is a video of some older hardware but the same idea.


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## Jay Vee (Dec 2, 2014)

Yes, try the drive in question using USB and see what is still intact. Hopefully in resizing the partitions it didn't do anything destructive with the partitions you need. In the future I would refrain from moving/resizing partitions with data on them using these partition software. Most of the time they'll work fine but it only takes one mistake. And if you must, backup all important stuff before doing.


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## FITBMX (Dec 21, 2014)

SpikeyJohnson said:


> Ubuntu is a very powerful tool if in the right hands.  Because it ignores many permissions it will let you ruin things though.  What I recommend is buying something like this: Amazon.com: Sabrent Ultra Slim USB 2.0 to 2.5-Inch SATA External Aluminum Hard Drive Enclosure [Black] (EC-UK25): Computers & Accessories and putting the disk in it.  You can then boot up your new machine and just plug in the drive like you would a SD card reader or external hard drive and view the stuff and copy it off.  The docks work the same way but are more of a "professional" aproach where you aren't going to be moving the drive anywhere other than from the computer, to the dock on the other computer, and then back to the origional computer.
> 
> An enclosure will let you keep using the disk after you are done saving all your stuff off it.




I am going to have to get one of those, that could be really handy!


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## robbins.photo (Dec 21, 2014)

Sounds like your partitions are messed up and that's why it won't boot.  Since you mentioned Ubuntu, I'd put the ubuntu CD/DVD in the drive and try to boot it to the live CD version.  This should allow you to access any working partitions on the drive and copy files from them to back them up.

Then I'd wipe the drive in the laptop completely and reinstall from scratch.  That will most likely be your best bet.


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## SpikeyJohnson (Dec 21, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> Sounds like your partitions are messed up and that's why it won't boot.  Since you mentioned Ubuntu, I'd put the ubuntu CD/DVD in the drive and try to boot it to the live CD version.  This should allow you to access any working partitions on the drive and copy files from them to back them up.
> 
> Then I'd wipe the drive in the laptop completely and reinstall from scratch.  That will most likely be your best bet.



That is a wonderful idea as well. A live boot CD would allow him to get the data off the laptop if it is able to finally boot off the CD.  Good thinking Robbins!


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## bribrius (Dec 23, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> Sounds like your partitions are messed up and that's why it won't boot.  Since you mentioned Ubuntu, I'd put the ubuntu CD/DVD in the drive and try to boot it to the live CD version.  This should allow you to access any working partitions on the drive and copy files from them to back them up.
> 
> Then I'd wipe the drive in the laptop completely and reinstall from scratch.  That will most likely be your best bet.


I was actually going ahead with the hard drive thing. I comprehend taking out the hard drive. The way things are on 8 I actually wonder if it is a bios problem they seemed linked from the manufacturer and Microsoft now. Not like it used to be. would it even boot from cd? Didnt seem like it wants to boot at all.  But then I don't know I am ignorant on the new "ways". Can you flash 8 for a bios repair? Old days just flash the bios and run a recovery cd. I am getting old me thinks. I am missing xp. it sucked but after they did the 214 or so updates over the years to fix it it actually kinda worked. Just when the finally sort the bugs out they out with a new one (LMAO).  Remember the constant unregistered dll problem with xp? That was wicked fun. shoot. windows 98 is looking good right now. I think technology passed me by. My kid had to show me how to use my cell phone.


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## robbins.photo (Dec 23, 2014)

bribrius said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > Sounds like your partitions are messed up and that's why it won't boot.  Since you mentioned Ubuntu, I'd put the ubuntu CD/DVD in the drive and try to boot it to the live CD version.  This should allow you to access any working partitions on the drive and copy files from them to back them up.
> ...



Windows 8 uses UEFI for quicker boot times - unfortunately this also means it's more or less hooked into the BIOS which can be a royal pain.

On a lot of systems, HP's in particular, if you hit the F10 key right after you power up that will get you into the BIOS.  A lot of other systems use F12, and quite a few laptops will have F8 or F2 reserved for that purpose.  On a lot of the newer windows 8 loads F2 will do the trick.

Windows 8 takes advantage of a new "Secure Boot" system built into UEFI bios's.. which is nice enough in theory but in practice if your Windows 8 install blows up, it' can be a royal pain in the keester.  One of the many reasons I don't run Windows 8 - I stuck with 7 and won't be upgrading myself particularly on my laptop.


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## bribrius (Dec 23, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> bribrius said:
> 
> 
> > robbins.photo said:
> ...


well, the other thing is somewhere in that uefi (guessing) is the settings for external monitor. since the screen is broke and I was using a external monitor whatever it IS doing I cant see it. As it isn't even relaying over to the external monitor. Hence I am pushing buttons guessing where it is in bootup as I cant SEE it.


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## robbins.photo (Dec 23, 2014)

bribrius said:


> robbins.photo said:
> 
> 
> > bribrius said:
> ...



Ugh.  Well in that case your best bet is probably to pull the drive out completely, if you have a desktop you can hook it up to that and boot the desktop, then access the drive that way to get at your files.  You can also get a neat little doodad I used to use a lot that allows you to plug a sata hard drive into a dock that connects to the system via USB.  I used mine a lot back in my computer tech days for situations like this, where someone's system had crashed and I needed to get files off the drive.


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