Pavilion DV8223NR, does not boot, cannot be powered off etc

Hello,

I have HP Pavilion DV8223nr with Windows XP Media Center that stopped booting a year or so ago and had been sitting in closet. I am now wanting to make it work.

With battery in or completely taken out plugged in to power only, the power button works to light up all the indicator lights but nothing happens from there on.No hard drive activity, no CD-ROM spin, no activity on the screen (all these did work when I put it away and the problem then was corruption of Windows). If I stick a boot up disk in CD-ROM nothing happens. I cannot turn the power off by pushing the power button, have to unplug it. Pushing F8, 10, Esc buttons do not do anything, cannot bring up the bios page, boot sequence choice or any thing else.

Question: Can the BIOS go dead over long time? If yes, how do I fix this?

Once BIOS starts working, I assume I will be able to boot from CD-Rom. Then I can use the recovery CDs to recover the computer.

Thanks for the help.

 

first replace the cmos battery, as it is dead after so long a time. go to HP website for specs on your laptop and how to change cmos battery.

 

Thank you. New battery got it started. I restored windows from a previous recovery set. Started the computer from hard drive but have this message "windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows root>\system32\hal.dll. So I looked in my desktop (which is same system) and found the file in that path, copied it to USB drive. Back on the broken laptop, there is a HAL.DLL file present in the above path and it is 129KB in size same as new file. Anyway I deleted that file and replaced it with the file from other computer. Restarted the computer but same message.

I do not have the original Windows XP CD. The computer did not come with the recovery disks. I do have a Winodws XP install CD. Starting the computer with that does not give me option of repair and will install a fresh windows that does not belong to this laptop.

Suggestions on how I should proceed to fix this? Thanks very much.

 

xp media center is based on xp pro, media center has two disc to do a fresh install,

but you should first run checkdisk, if you can not boot into any mode, have you tried safe mode??

you can burn a disk or usb with the recovery console and run checkdisk, you may have to run a couple of times until no errors are found.

here are instructions for a Hiren's boot disc from which you can run checkdisk as I do not know if your pc has sata drives and recovery console iso is for ide drive.

Courtesy of Jose Ibarra:
Anywho, to make a Hiren's boot CD, do this

I am going to recommend you use Hiren's boot CD (it will also go on a USB drive).

This is good for you because it has many more tools on it that on the XP Recovery Console CD, does not care about your Administrator passwords and you will not have to futz around in your BIOS if any afflicted system has SATA drives - Hiren's can deal with that.

You will have a whole bunch of cool tools that you don't have in the XP Recovery Console... a registry editor, password resetter, and a desktop that looks like Windows XP so you will feel comfortable maneuvering.

You can also easily copy your personal data (documents, images, music.) to an external drive.

From a working system, first download Hiren's Boot CD from here (it is a substantial download but worth it):

http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/ (look near the bottom of the page, do not click on any ads).
http://www.hirensbootcd.org/burning/
Instructions

Unzip the Hiren's to some folder where you can find it. There is a Hiren's.BootCD..iso in there that you are going to need next.

Hiren's has instructions to make a bootable USB that you can use, but it requires you to first burn the .iso to a CD and some other steps, so I suggest another way...

Download RUFUS 1.20 from here (read some stuff on the page so you can know more about it):

http://rufus.akeo.ie/

I will caution you to be careful that you don't accidentally format any of your hard drives - be sure your USB stick is in and know what the drive letter is! This part always makes me a little nervous, so be careful.

Launch RUFUS and all the defaults should be okay, for the Device, choose your USB drive letter, Quick format, FAT32, label it if you want to and in the Format options box, click the little icon that looks like a CD and a window will open. Navigate that dialogue to point to the folder that contains the Hiren's.BootCD.15.iso that you unzipped earlier and the box should change to say ISO image (RUFUS understands the Hiren's ISO file).

Double check you have the right Device selected in the top (NOT you HDD) Click Start, acknowledge the warning and let it finish (it will take a little while) as it copies the files. The Hiren's ISO is also good size.

When RUFUS is done, it will say 'DONE' in the bottom.

Put the USB stick in the afflicted machine and reset/reboot and press whatever key you need to press to get to a boot menu where you can select the USB as the first boot device (that is F11 for me). If you don't see a boot menu choice, you will have to adjust your BIOS to boot from the USB first instead of the HDD.

When the Hiren's menu comes up, choose the Mini XP Mode and it will start loading (slowly from a USB drive) and eventually you should see a Windowsy looking desktop. You should recognize that part and feel comfortable, but it is not your desktop - it is the Hiren's desktop!

Remember: You did not boot on your hard disk - you booted into the Hiren's desktop


http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd-on-usb-disk
Hiren’s for flash drive

 

reply no. 2: I always run checkdisk first before further troubleshooting.

 

Thank you Elizabeth. I did run CHKDSK on it twice. What I did was take the HD out, put it in another computer as secondary and ran CHDSK and also Defrag. My last question was after that.

Now: hal.dll copy from another computer did not fix the problem. What can I do next? I do not have original XP CD. The recovery CDs perhpas have a fault in it too. There is a Recovery partition D: on the laptop but I am not sure how to access it without XP CD. I do have the "Windows install CD" that I compiled from information available on line and I have used it before. Booting from that CD is what does not give me the option of "rapair" instead it installs a brand new windows on the computer.

What can I do next. Thanks.

 

if you have a recovery partition, this is used to set the laptop back to out of box setup.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02162300.pdf

this link is the users manual and starting on page 7 is how to use recovery discs, make recovery discs or on some models restoring directly from the partition.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findbyerrormessage/a/missinghaldll.htm

above is link for hal.dll is missing solutions.

 

Update and questions: done repair, fixmbr etc. still black scr

Hello, Since my previous questions, this is what I have done: First with the Hiren's boot CD I was able to examine the C:. It is intact. I copied the documents and settings folder to a safe external device. Did CHKDSK twice, both times it showed no errors. With a Windows XP CD compiled from internet (apparently it does work), I did a "repair" of windows. Rebooted the system, still black screen (after windows logo shows). Again started the computer with XP CD to the install screen. opened recovery consol to C:\windows> here I typed fixmbr. System said your MBR is bad or something like that and it will write new MBR. I said yes and it did a new MBR. Restarted the computer from hard drive. Again black screen.

Norton Ghost question here: After booting the computer from a UBCD or Hiren's mini XP, is it possible to run full version of Norton Ghost 10 which is already on the machine in C: ? If that was possible, I know there is "advanced recovery" option in that which can then restore from this corrupted C:. The "recovery disk version" of Ghost sees the C: as "invalid" and does not restore to it at all.

Any other options at this point? Thanks.

 

a repair install of xp cannot be performed if the pc in question had sp3 installed UNLESS you had sp3 on the repair disk, at this point since you have safely removed your data, I would do a fresh install with a full format.