Laptop won’t boot: What now?

If your laptop no longer boots up, this can have numerous causes. We present you with the most common problems and their solutions.

Laptop no longer boots up: How to find the error

If the laptop does not start up, it can have various reasons:

• Remove the battery from the laptop (if possible) and then reinsert it. Also check whether your power supply unit still works. But be careful: do not use any power supply other than your own to charge your computer. After many years of use or in the event of an overvoltage, the battery may fail to work.

• If the laptop starts but the screen remains black, it may be a faulty display or a faulty connection to the display. To check this, connect an external display to your laptop and restart it.

• If you hear beeps, they are sent from the BIOS. With the help of this list of BIOS beeps, you can find out what the computer is trying to indicate.
  • If a part of the hardware that is necessary for the start-up is defective, it cannot be easily traced on a laptop. In this case, you need to have a professional look.

  Laptop does not start: These are possible solutions

  Try the following to start your laptop:

  • If the problem is with the hardware or software, you can try to start Windows in safe mode. In this case, only the most necessary hardware and software will be needed.
    • If it is the Windows operating system, you can repair it by inserting the original Windows CD. If you no longer have this, you can also restore Windows without a CD.
      

       

      Laptot won’t boot: data recovery as a last resort

      If the above solutions do not work, create a backup of your data. If you got into the BIOS in the previous step but could not start Windows, you may still be able to rescue your data using a free small operating system that you must first burn onto a CD.

      • Download the free operating system Knoppix on another PC with a CD/DVD drive. It is only 700 MByte in size and therefore fits perfectly on a normal CD.
      • Now you have to burn the downloaded ISO file onto a blank CD. If you already have burning software installed on your PC, you can use it. Here we briefly explain how to burn the CD with CDBurnerXP.
      • Once “CDBurnerXP” is downloaded and installed, it will start automatically. Click on the button “Burn ISO Image” and in the new window on the button “Browse”. Select the downloaded ISO file. Finally, you can create the CD by clicking on the button “Burn medium”.
      • Insert the CD into the laptop that no longer starts and boot it. “Knoppix” will start on its own. After about three to five minutes, you will have an operating system that is relatively similar to Windows. You can now back up the data from your hard drive to a USB stick or an external hard drive.
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