Laptop boot up error - help needed

[Overread]

My bothers laptop has suddenly had a booting problem.

When starting up it gives the message:

Check Cable connection
PXE-M0F Exiting Intel FXE ROM
It then wants the user to insert the boot disk.

My assumption is that its clearly unable to read the boot HD inside the laptop and thus wants the boot CD to startup. Going into the Bios I find under the first HDD activated


In the Bios it reads:
HDDO Serial Number Intel(long number)
HDDO BAD-CTX 00000166


A very short amount of googling seems to sugget that there is an error with intel SSD that can spark when certain power-down routines get interrupted causing it to basically kill the HD. However the error number for a few of them was different (whilst this specific number appeared on a few foreign sites I couldn't read). I'm unsure if its the same error, although it sounds like the drive might be dead - or at the very least needs to be formated and started up again?

 

[robbins.photo]

My bothers laptop has suddenly had a booting problem.

When starting up it gives the message:

Check Cable connection
PXE-M0F Exiting Intel FXE ROM
It then wants the user to insert the boot disk.

My assumption is that its clearly unable to read the boot HD inside the laptop and thus wants the boot CD to startup. Going into the Bios I find under the first HDD activated


In the Bios it reads:
HDDO Serial Number Intel(long number)
HDDO BAD-CTX 00000166


A very short amount of googling seems to sugget that there is an error with intel SSD that can spark when certain power-down routines get interrupted causing it to basically kill the HD. However the error number for a few of them was different (whilst this specific number appeared on a few foreign sites I couldn't read). I'm unsure if its the same error, although it sounds like the drive might be dead - or at the very least needs to be formated and started up again?

Ok, well first things first - this could very well be hard drive related, sounds like from the error messages your getting what the laptop is trying to do is boot from an image over the network. So I'd start by going into the bios, making sure that the HDD is not just the first thing in the boot sequence but rather the only thing - disable anything in the bios that allows the laptop to try and start from the network, cd drive, etc - and see what it does.

If it still won't boot then it's most likely due to a HDD issue of some sort, so next thing I would do would be to pull the HDD, if you have the ability to plug it into a desktop / etc that would be my next step, and grab any files off of it that you can assuming the desktop can still read it. Then I'd try repartitioning/reformatting the hdd and go from there.

 

[Overread]

The boot page in the BIOS won't let me enter any sub-menu for the boot sequence. I can move things up and down the list, but I can't set the computer to disable/enable options in the list itself.


As for removing the harddrive I'm not sure if we can as its a laptop (and even if we can I'm not all that happy fiddling around inside one that isn't mine).

 

[lambertpix]

I think you're barking up the right tree. Sounds like an ailment particular to Intel SSD's. This suggests that the drive may be revived, but data on it is gone:

Huge Bug in Intel SSDs: Complete Recovery Information Here - Tested

Note to self: avoid Intel SSD's.

 

[Overread]

Aye it does sound like that - although many of the articles are quite old which made me wonder why it would suddenly rise its head now (the laptop is I think around a year old or so by now and many of the articles are two or three years back). And yes it sounds like if it is that error all data is gone - although I wonder if a service centre might have the resources to remove - plug and copy and then repair and restore data.

 

[runnah]

Try turning it off and in again.

 

[robbins.photo]

The boot page in the BIOS won't let me enter any sub-menu for the boot sequence. I can move things up and down the list, but I can't set the computer to disable/enable options in the list itself.


As for removing the harddrive I'm not sure if we can as its a laptop (and even if we can I'm not all that happy fiddling around inside one that isn't mine).

Almost all of them the HD will be on the bottom, generally two screws holds on a plastic cover, HDD will be underneath in a caddy, 2-4 screws usually to remove the caddy - there will sometimes be an adapter that plugs into the drive to convert it from sata to whatever cables the laptop uses, though many newer laptops will have a direct plugin for sata with no adapter required.

But if you don't feel comfortable removing the drive, if the drive is at the top of the boot order and it won't boot - yup, your looking at repartitioning and reformatting the drive, if that doesn't work then it will most likely need to be replaced. If you need to get data off the drive first try downloading something like Linux Mint or Linux Ubuntu and booting to that via CD or thumb drive, and see if you can access the main HDD and copy the files that way.

 

[KmH]

Aye it does sound like that - although many of the articles are quite old which made me wonder why it would suddenly rise its head now (the laptop is I think around a year old or so by now and many of the articles are two or three years back).

Which describes the worst kind of problem there is for a computer gear maker. A bug they thought was fixed that still rears it's head on a very, very few devices.