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General discussion

Computer powers on but won't boot.

by cferg913 May 8, 2010 4:48AM PDT

We have an HP Pavilion a6667c desktop computer, running Windows Vista Home Premium. This morning when it was turned on it went to the blue screen with system recovery, boot menu, diagnostics, and set up options. However, when the F key is pressed nothing happens. We tried different keyboards and unplugged and reconnected everything as well as repeatedly pushing each of the F keys when turning on the computer (not all at once..each time it was turned on a different key was tried.) Both the mouse and keyboard come on as do the fans but I can't get to the boot menu or any of the other options.

Any help would be greatly appreciated as the computer repair shop recommended to us is closed on the weekend.

Discussion is locked

11 Posts
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Why did you....
by Papa Echo May 8, 2010 8:37AM PDT

...choose to press the "F" key ?

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Why I used F keys
by cferg913 May 8, 2010 9:52AM PDT

Because it won't come on past that first screen I mentioned. I thought I could get it to run in safe mode or run a diagnostic to see what is going on. It was a function key not the letter "F."

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Safe mode.....
by Papa Echo May 8, 2010 2:13PM PDT

... is pressing F8 as soon as you switch on the computer... you may have to press and release the key every second for a "beep" and the boot menu to come up... Have you managed that ?

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Safe mode
by cferg913 May 9, 2010 1:00AM PDT

Yes, but nothing happens. It just goes to the blue screen with the boot menu option but then the menu won't open.
Thank you for the reply.

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computer won't boot...
by OldSk00l May 8, 2010 10:57AM PDT

This isn't too easy to figure out but, generally, this could have been caused by a corruption in the Windows OS or on the hard drive. You could have a problem with the computer memory; this can cause corruption of the operating system and data.

Do you have your data backed up? First I would try running the diagnostics and see if it finds any problems with the hard drive or memory. If not, I would try reinstalling the operating system. If there are problems with the hard drive, then I would buy a new one and reinstall everything. If the memory is the problem, you can buy new memory to replace the "bad" memory.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

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Thanks
by cferg913 May 8, 2010 11:40AM PDT

Thank you. I can't run the diagnostic. I can't get the computer to go anywhere past that first screen. We are going to take it in Monday to be looked at and possibly send the hard drive to my brother-in-law to have someone in his company retrieve our data. I was just kind of hoping there would be an easy fix. It worked perfectly fine yesterday.

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Good luck...
by Papa Echo May 9, 2010 9:43AM PDT

Please do report back to share with us the results....

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On Its Way to Texas
by cferg913 May 21, 2010 12:03PM PDT

We sent the computer to HP in Texas today. They are going to look at it and replace the hard drive if necessary. The tech seems to think it may be something other than the hard drive so we'll see what their solution is. Thanks to everyone for all the advice.

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F10
by crashnburn_2003 May 8, 2010 11:02AM PDT

For that model it should be F10 to get into BIOS. Try booting with your rescue CD.

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Thank you
by cferg913 May 8, 2010 11:45AM PDT

Unfortunately, none of the function keys are doing anything. I even tried another keyboard. The computer didn't come with restore cds. I can send for them but as I stated in my reply, to another poster, above we are going to deal with it the hard and probably expensive way next week. I was just hoping there would be an easy way to fix it since it worked fine yesterday.

I guess I've learned the hard way to make system backup cds. Although I don't know if that would have helped since the computer seems pretty unresponsive to anything right now.

Thank you for your help.

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:)
by crashnburn_2003 May 8, 2010 12:52PM PDT

You're welcome, and good luck. I hope you get good news from the shop.

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