please help my laptop has decided to go funny i have win/vista prem and up till now was workin fine but all of a sudden has started, well i'll explain you turn it on it comes up with the compaq startup screen sits there as normal for 5-10 secs but then turns off and starts again i can enter setup bios for as long as i want but as soon as it trys to load windows it turns off and starts again, this happens with the charger in or without.
please please help me.

ps. its a compaq presario f500

 

my dell did the same with windows xp,i had to reload xp back on.

i think on mine i had to hit f4 as soon as the screen come on to enter the xp restart screen.
have you looked in the instruction book to see if there are any trouble shooting guides,and how to restart vista?might be worth a shot before paying someone to have a look

 

When the machine turns on press F8 at one second intervals. Hopefully you might get to the windows Safe Mode screen, if you do, then there should be an option to boot into safe mode, which I would do, then once it's in safe mode, reboot and don't hold down any keys and see if it then boots normally.

 

As above but try loading the last configuration settings which worked as this will use the stored kernel. Your PC is failing to load the 5 kernels that are required to load windows.

This will come up if you get to the Safe mode menu.

It normally is f5 or f6 or f8 as suggested to get into this menu.
Some pc or laptop bios are different.

 

hi thanks peeps have tried all these but still not loading windows any other ideas?

 

Put your XP disc in and start the laptop, does it try and boot from the disc? and does it give you the option to "repair"

 

hi its running vista and i dont have a disk it was pre installed

 

Ok if the OS was pre installed it will have a hidden partition on the HD that allows you to recover it to its factory default settings.
Cant remember what the key press (might be F10 ?? ) is to get it start the recovery process - but it should be all in your manual.
Downside is that you will lose any stuff you have saved on your hard drive that have not backed up
Richard

 

Is your bios detecting a hard disc?