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General discussion

turned off laptop during xp setup

by John34245 Feb 19, 2009 8:59AM PST

I have been trying for several hours now to set up Ubuntu and XP as a dual boot on my Compaq v6000 laptop. During XP setup, out of frustration- I know I know I'm an idiot- I shut the power off. The computer will now not boot, from the hard drive (which was in the process of having windows set up on it) OR the CD drive. It just goes to a black screen. What should I do?

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3 Posts
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Does it go through POST
by Steven Haninger Feb 19, 2009 9:20AM PST

and can you enter the BIOS setup screens? If so, I'd check to make sure the CD ROM is selected as the first boot device, shut it down and remove all power. Take the battery out and let it sit a while and then try again. I've seen a few strange things with laptops booting that this seems to fix. I don't know why.

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got it to boot from cd drive
by John34245 Feb 19, 2009 10:42AM PST

I can now get it to boot from the CD drive but the setup tells me "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer"
any suggestions?

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You're gonna have to start . . .
by Coryphaeus Feb 19, 2009 10:48AM PST

from scratch. You've probably corrupted the boot sector and thoroughly trashed the OS. You need to do a full format including creating a new partition and install XP. If this doesn't work, the power off while running may have trashed the hard drive. Not likely, but if you cannot get the CD to find the drive . . .

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