Where did Vista go?

[redneon]

I have a Lenovo 3000 N200 lap top. I got it used. When I first gave it to my gr.son to use to play roblox and minecraft it was running Vista. It even has the vista stamp on the laptop case itself. Five months in besides having video driver issues with the game minecarft, it has been working well. Last week it suddenly did a restart, and when it came back up it suddenly had a windows XP professional start page and everything had changed. The computer has be locking up now when he plays his games and I found out he has been removing the battery to get it to "unlock" and do a restart.

Now when the computer starts up it wants to chkdsk but it gets to stage 2 and stops. It stops and I let it go for a full 12 hours with no further movement in the check at 13%. It won't let me do a manual chkdsk /r either, stops in the same spot. Error report says to back up and more or less go buy a new hard drive.

Is there anything I can do to fix or repair this? I have run the Lenovo thinkvantage tool box testing system but it does not repair or tell me what exactly is wrong. Any ideas would be great help. Thanks for your time. I'm not very computer savy so plain english would also help..lol

 

[whs]

Hmm, looks like your disk got nicked. Do you have a Vista installation disk or did you make an image of the system that you could reinstall. Also, is there a Vista COA sticker on the bottom of the laptop with a 25 digit Vista product key.

You probably will have to replace the disk (since it does not seem to react to anything) and reinstall.

 

[richc46]

Welcome
I would back up my stuff, NOW and then check the hard drive

Test Hard Drive

Hard drive scan usings SeaTools - SeaToolsfor Windows | Seagate - Both long and shorttests

 

[redneon]

Hmm, looks like your disk got nicked. Do you have a Vista installation disk or did you make an image of the system that you could reinstall. Also, is there a Vista COA sticker on the bottom of the laptop with a 25 digit Vista product key.

You probably will have to replace the disk (since it does not seem to react to anything) and reinstall.

Yes, I do have a coa sticker on the bottom of the laptop and the product key is listed on it. No I do not have an installation disk, was loaded when purchased. How can I re install windows if I don't have a disk?

 

[redneon]

Welcome
I would back up my stuff, NOW and then check the hard drive

Test Hard Drive

Hard drive scan usings SeaTools - SeaToolsfor Windows | Seagate - Both long and shorttests

There isn't anything important to back up, it was strickly used by my gr.son to play the two games. I just want to get it working again for him. And cant check the hard drive, it won't let me. It sits at 13% stage 2 was there for over 12 hours.

 

[whs]

You should have burnt the installation disk from the recovery partition. But if the system does not work, you are stuck.

You can order an installation disk from the PC manufacturer. They usually charge a S&H fee - about $20. But you still need an new HDD - which is expensive these days because Thailand is flooded. Most of the HDDs come from there.

Check on Newegg or TigerDirect. They sometimes have deals. You need a 2.5" bare bone disk.

In the future, make periodic images. Then you can get back into business in 20 to 30 minutes - provided the disk is OK.


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