markymarc2000

Hi Ken B Looking better, I did as you said and the box showed 5 options F, HP Recovery, OS©, Recovery (G) and SYSTEM. They all come up as 'Healthy' and all show the calculated free space, capacity etc. Also mentions partitions etc so something is going on - hopefully the right things! Can you advise on the next step, to me it looks like the System is the one to work on? Many thanks

Hi I tried the chk scan, one box appears telling me I need to format the disc. When the cmd dialogue box appears it tells me the file is NTFS. On my computer it shows as Recovery G. It won't go any further as the volume is being used in another program. Still nothing, any more suggestions would be great, I'm not losing hope yet! Thanks, Marc

Thanks, I'll give it a go, Marc

Hello Vr5fx Well the caddy arrived and did as you said - connected to my desktop and waited. The HDD makes a very quiet whirring noise and when the file box pops up it's titled Recovery Disc F but nothing else. After a while another dialogue box appears saying its 'inaccessible error performing inpage operation' and needs to be formatted which it warns will delete all data. Have not proceeded further. Any ideas? There is also a Local disc G but theat does nothing. Is all lost? Any help of course greatly appreciated!

Hello Vr5fx, and thank you for replying. I've ordered the little caddy from Ebay, should be here by weekend - as soon as I get it I'll give it a go, it makes sense. Will keep you informed.

Thanks Ken, I'll give it a go tomorrow (I'm at work now so it'll be tomorrow) Will keep you posted and thanks of course!

Hi Ken Thank you for your reply! I can't get an error code - I reboot, the compaq logo comes on, then instead of the windows login after about 3 minutes the screen goes black and a large white cursor appears in the middle. This can be moved with my mouse but that's it. I've tried F8 and pressed safe mode but it still goes black with the cursor. If I press Set up menu at the very beginning it allows me to check the Memory and passes, then the hard drive when it seems to get stuck so I guess it could be there that the problem lies. I can probably restore to factory settings but would rather not if it can be avoided! Any help would be great, Marc

Needless to say I need help. I have a Compaq Presario CQ71. It's not my main computer but has a lot of files so is important. It was running ok last night with internet on when blue screen flashed up that it had crashed. Then it died. Left it a few minutes, rebooted, left it again, all that came up is the black screen and a white cursor. I used my second computer to Google and there seems to be loads of 'try this' or 'try that' but nothing seems to work. My system is a factory fitted Vista so I have no reboot discs etc. I have tried going through the start up menu to check memory hard drive but in the end it's still the same. I've had the blue screen and other issues and have managed to get out of them but this has stumped me - I'm in the middle of Snowdonia so there's no PC doctor here, really don't want to go there anyway - PLEASE CAN ANYBODY HELP ME!