I'm getting a window that tells me windows failed to start and recommends startup repair, but it doesn't solve the problem. Evenutally, it ends up on a blue screen which looks like an option on screensaver. I'm pretty much a novice and would appreciate any help.
John P, welcome to the windows 7 forums.
You might want to fill in your system specifications so that someone could give you some advice on what
to do next.
Rich
You can install Speccy (link in my signature) which will provide you will detailed information about your system specifications.
Then click My System Specs on your post, and then Update System Spec.
Hope this helps with the system specifications update,
Harry
But the problem is that my laptop is locked up and I can't get into it.
Just in case, did you try booting up in safe-mode? Hit F8 after the BIOS...
Yes - without any luck. I created a startup disk from my father in law's PC which is the same as mine - bought at the same time. It made it as far as asking for the location to enter the language for the System Recovery Options. I selected a country and clicked next without any add'l windows, just a blue screen. The screen looks like one of the screensavers that freezes.
The repair disk should load on its own, regardless of the condition of the hard drive, it should not hang at that point of the boot process. Theoretically, you could take out the hard drive, boot to the repair disk, and it would finish loading if the other hardware works just fine. Your laptop has some hardware issues that could be any number of things.
As others suggested, you should post some specs about your laptop. Your father-in-law's laptop is the same, collect the specs from that laptop. It's important to know who made the laptop and is it still under warranty? It would be silly doing things to the laptop that voids the warranty...
I've added some add'l infomation on my computer. Let me know what else is needed. appreciate the help and advise.
From what we know, it's nearly impossible to tell why the laptop does not even boot repair disk; is the laptop still under warranty?
If not and you need data off from the hard drive, you could remove the HDD and install it in your father-in-law's laptop. Doing so would eliminate your laptop's hardware issues; however, it may require re-activating Windows 7 if the OS boots just fine in its "new" home.
Alternatively, you could also get an external enclosure with USB interface, install your laptops hard drive, and connect it to a PC/laptop. You should be able to boot to the drive, if the BIOS support USB device boot, or just mount it in other running Windows PC. If you cannot access the hard drive at outside of your laptop, then the hard drive is damaged.
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