Need some help repairing my laptop

Anyways. Been struggling with this laptop for awhile. Been sitting in my closet, as it broke down 2 years ago after gateway had just sent us it. It was a refurbished laptop to replace ours.. As they were sick of repairing it and sending it back.

Most of the time the issue has been this. It starts up, goes through a brief windows loading screen (Which I think is too short) And then goes to disk check. Disc check usually seems to go pretty well, although it usually seems really fast. Going through the process in less than a minute. Then it will stall for a bit. I didn't know how to disable automatic reboot, so there may have been other messages it flashed. But the one time I did get it, it was a

Comdlg32.dll corrupt.

That's mainly what I remember. I forgot to save it. I re-installed software and now it just freezes and doesn't give me any message.

So I've done my best to make sure that it's not a RAM issue. I've tried each RAM stick installed in the computer, and it doesn't really matter which one is in. So unless they are both corrupt, that's not the issue.

Fans seem to work (Idk if this would be affecting it, but I've had that suggestion from a friend.)


Hard Drive appears to have some function, but I think this is the culprit in the issue. Sometimes after re-installing factory software, I just get a diskread error. However I do hear it working, and files do seem to copy down to it.

I'm looking for suggestions on what might be causing it.. And ways to confirm it. Or if you have a way to fix it that works too.

Suggestions to find a functioning SATA hard drive for relatively cheap (I dont want to buy an expensive one if this isn't the issue to find that this won't fix a thing on it.)

TL;DR: Don't bother, you should probably read the post. If my writing is a mess I'll clarify on request.

Disk checks on start up, slow, actual file system errors. Sounds like a hard drive issue and being a laptop the odds are increased. If the shipping companies handled your laptop then you can most likely thank them for the damage.
Look in the "event log" under system and see if you have any errors relating to file system or the hard drive.

Open a command prompt ( Start -- Run --- CMD )
and type: chkdsk /f /v /r

It will need to reboot but it will do a better check on the hard drive. Any errors from a hard drive are not good as it renders the hard drive unreliable.

If it was memory you would usually get errors during the install.

Newegg.com has SATA 80gig drives for $40 and 120gig for $50.

reply to post by staple


Thanks for the reply. Is there any other advice you could give me? Windows will not load at all.

I don't know if the Linux distros that run from the CD/DVD without installing have disk checking tools, but it's worth a try, if the computer has a working CD/DVD drive.

Originally posted by ArMaP
I don't know if the Linux distros that run from the CD/DVD without installing have disk checking tools, but it's worth a try, if the computer has a working CD/DVD drive.

Yup - that's where I was going.

You can also try to do an in-place Windows repair, after you've made sure it's not a hardware issue. Go to install Windows and it will detect the existing installation. Tell it to go ahead in the same directory.

Windows issues can cause looping. Don't know the age of the hard drive, but Win issues are pretty common (says the linux convert).

Good luck and post progress.

I'm not sure what the problem is but I would run a complete full hard drive scan from a start up disk. A technician told me to do that on my pc when I had hard drive issues. It took hours to run on my pc at that time. He thought it was about to crash but for some reason, it kept on working. The next technician I spoke to was from Pakistan and didn't help me at all. I told him I started having problems after installing the microsoft critical security update. He told me I should never install microsoft windows updates. This was Dell tech support years ago.

Originally posted by ArMaP
I don't know if the Linux distros that run from the CD/DVD without installing have disk checking tools, but it's worth a try, if the computer has a working CD/DVD drive.

This was my next step, just been looking for one that will fit on my USB drive.

Pretty sure my laptop is capable of booting from USB.. But it still has a functioning DVD drive. So I could do this as well.

Anyways. When I try this, I'll let you guys know how it want. Will probably work on it tomorrow, but maybe tonight if I have time.

Boot to Safe Mode.

Choose: Last Known Good Config.

If it boots open a command prompt and run: chkdsk /f /r

If chkdsk does not fix it, boot to Safe Mode again and run: sfc /scannow

You will need your CD for that, unless you research how to do it withiut the CD.

[edit on 3/8/10 by makeitso]

Boot CD suggestions:

Hiren's BootCD is a wonderful live CD containing various programs such as Hard drive recovery, Hard Drive Partition, Hard Drive Backup, Hard Drive Testing, RAM (Memory) Testing, System Information, MBR (Master BootRecord), BIOS, MultiMedia, Password, NTFS (FileSystems), Antivirus, AntiSpy, Process, Windows Startup, Registry tools, Windows Cleaners, Optimizers, Tweakers, and many others... As it is a bootable CD, it can be useful even if the primary operating system cannot be booted. We may call it as an emergency cd which every computer technician or home user must have.

Hiren's Boot CD

Ultimate Boot CD

good luck