HP Pavillion dv3150nr boot loop (BIOS/startup malfunction?)

[GeoKenshin]

A few hours ago why running a few programs and things (nothing that taxing like a game or anything) my computer randomly shut down. Now when I tried to reboot it (or when it restarted itself im not too sure) It would flash a blank DOS window with a blinking "_" for 3-5 seconds then go to the HP BIOS screen and remain there for a few seconds. At the point in which it would normally go to the next screen and start loading windows it instead started the booting process all over and went back to the BIOS screen and would do this continually until i pressed the power button and shut it off.



I have no idea what is the problem and how to fix it. I ran the memory and other daignostics in the bios and they did not come up with any errors. My antivirus expired not too long ago but i dont think a virus could do this.



I did at one time get a message something like this "Primary (internal) Battery (601) storage capacity of battery very low, replace battery) But that make have been a fluke caused by me trying to perform a "hard reset" by removing the battery and draining the remaining power in the notebook.





I am no longer under warranty (By 10 days! Doesn't this always happen?!) and I'm at a loss for what to do. I may still be able to boot from a disk but before I try anything like that I need to understand what is causing the problem and how best to fix it.


Any help would be appreciated.

Notebook stats (pretty much the only thing I'm able to access in the bios besides diagnostic tests):



Notebook model: HP Pavillion dv3500 Notebook PC



Windows Vista


SYSTEM BOARD ID: 1505

PROCESSOR TYPE: INTEL CORE 2 DUO CPU P7350 @ 2.00GHz

Total Memory: 4096 MB

BIOS Version F.13

 

[Tmagic650]

The primary internal battery might be the motherboard CMOS battery. Sounds like the hard drive may have gone bad... Once you get the laptop to boot, you can address the weak CMOS battery. Can you get into the boot devices in the bios at all?

 

[GeoKenshin]

Yes I can boot from a CD instead of the hard drive and so far i have tested the memory but I need to figure out what I can use to test the battery, motherboard, BIOS, and harddrive. I can get into the options but besides the option to boot from a CD I dont know if any of the built in diagnostics or setting reset functions are working.

I dont know if its the hard drive because I've been able to run virus scanners from CD's on it and I've been able to start copying things from the hard drive using an UBUNTU live cd.

Again the laptop will not boot into windows or finish starting up out of the BIOS so it may be the battery if thats whats causing the loop.

 

[jdillman1502]

Have you attempted to boot into safe mode?

 

[Tmagic650]

The hard drive's Master Boot Record has been corrupted. If you have a Vista install CD try performing a startup repair. If not, you can create and use an Ultimate Boot Disc to attempt an MBR repair. Please note that the hard drive can still be bad and it will have to be replaced

 

[GeoKenshin]

I cant boot into windows at all. If there is a way to boot into safe mode from the bios menu then I do not know it.

I do not have a vista install cd but i can order a repair cd from HP for about $20 if i absolutely need to.

I was in sucessfull in copying just about everything on my drive to another one Using Ubuntu. I have an ultimate boot CD burned but I dont know how to use the hard drive tools to repair the MBR.

 

[Tmagic650]

Boot to the UBCD and select hard drive tools. There should be a MBR repair tool there. If not, you will need that repair CD especially if the hard drive is bad... of which I'm 95% sure it is bad. I always try an all 0's write before I trash a hard drive. It sometimes makes the hard drive "good" again. Of course, this destroys all data

 

[GeoKenshin]

ok sorry they just had about 50-60 different harddrive and partition tools on the CD. I have MBRTool and MBRWork. I'll see if those have any automatic repair functions I'm not very good with entering commands to manipulate data though.

edit: both of those tools are recognized as corrupted. I'll try redownloading and burning a new copy but I find it really odd that those are the only two tools that are "corrupted"