Dropped my laptop...

I think I really did it this time. I am at a friend s house with a sprained ankle, and had connected my laptop with electricity and internet at her desk, in front of her computer. With all of the cords and cables of both computers and two headsets, as well as the bandages on my ankle, it has already happened twice that my laptop has fallen off the desk onto the hardwood floor. The first time this happened, the computer seemed not even to notice it: it simply continued to play the music that it was playing. The second time, however, the computer went black and will no longer turn on. The on/off button does not work, nor does the CD-release button. It is an ASUS Pro60R, with windows xp... In between the first fall and the second, I did go into regedit once to delete some invalid shortcuts... but I doubt any of that would make the computer not respond to the on/off button at all. Have I killed it for good this time?

Sounds like you need a Professional Repair Shop.

Unless you are comfortable in trying to open it and check your connections.

Other than that ASUS has these links:

http://support.asus.com/troubleshoot...Language=en-us

More ideas:

http://support.asus.com/techserv/tec...Language=en-us

If you get absolutely No Power with the AC connected and the battery removed then I don't know what else to suggest but seek Professional help.

I would be _somewhat_ comfortable opening my own computer... would that not, however, void my warranty or something? What equipment would I need besides a phillips screwdriver?

The only thing I have noticed about the computer since yesterday is that whenever I plug it into an outlet, the battery recharges, as though it is leaking in between times.... This is despite the fact that neither the green indicator "on" light ever turns on, nor does the screen do anything.

I will not be back in the city where I bought the computer until the end of next month, and there is only one registered ASUS support center in North America, so I spoke with a local computer support place. They said that I should do a backup of my data if I do not want to lose it. Is the implication that I would lose the data within a month if I do not back it up now?

If I do absolutely nothing and simply store it in my friend s house until I go back home, should I keep it plugged in due to this energy discharge?

Or would the best idea to be simply to mail it back to Europe where I bought it and have a friend service it immediately? (How do you mail a computer anyway?)

(Since the computer will not turn on at all, I was not able to follow any of the directions that you sent in your last message.)

Thank you for supporting a such a stupid human as me...

Janelle

Opening would void your warranty yes.

If the battery discharges you may lose your BIOS settings but I doubt that it would affect data on your hard drive.

The only issues I have seen with this is if the laptop is in an extended period of standby or hibernation.

If you want to take advantage of the warranty I would wait and take it back or send it back.

FedEx or UPS are the tools for that I believe. I am not sure how the warranty relates to physical damage but of course you don't have to mention that.

If you are not concerned with a warranty then you could look inside yourself (a philips screw driver is probably all that you need). We can search for a manual if you do not have one.

Or you could take it to a local repair shop.

I ended up calling the Warranty Center in the USA. They told me where to find my "reset" button and... It worked!!!!! The only thing that seems definitely damaged (other than the machine seeming to run just _slightly_ slowly) is that there is no E: drive. It does not recognise the drive at all, even when I open "my computer" -- there is no "e" drive. There is a CDROM in there now, and I cannot open it.

Is it listed in the Device Manager? Start/Run/ devmgmt.msc

If it is Uninstall it and reboot. XP should reload it and its' drivers.


If you mean that there is a CD in the drive look for a pin hole on the front of the drive and insert a pin. This is fairly standard on most drives to manually open.

I just followed your instructions. Under "devices" or "drives", there was only one, named IC25N060ATMR04-0 I uninstalled it and rebooted. When it started back up it told me that it had found this drive as "new hardware," and reinstalled it. However, there is still no E: drive on "my computer," and I can still not play a CD or a CDROM, so . . . the problem is still not fixed.
(When the computer first came back to life, I actually was able to open the CD drive without using the pinhole, and it seems to open and close normally now. In fact, every time I close it with the CDROM in it, the light goes on for a second as if it is going to read the CDROM, but then it stops.)

IC25N060ATMR04-0 is your hard drive.

Under the Device Manager you have no: DVD/CD-ROM Drives?

If not check your BIOS settings.

Switch on the system. Hold down DEL key to enter BIOS Setup Menu.

Look for a listing of your Drives and or Hardware configuration.

I cannot see any DVD/CD-ROM Drives. Nothing at all that says CD/DVD. Not even as a subcategory.

Holding down the DEL key does nothing

My search on the C and D drives for files or folders named BIOS produced results in the following locations:
C:\WINDOWS\system32
C:\WINDOWS\I386
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers
C:\WINDOWS\I386\COMPDATA
C:\WINDOWS\I386\DRIVER.CAB
C:\WINDOWS\I386\SP2.CAB
C:\Programme\Asus\WinFlash
C:\WINDOWS\system32\CatRoot\{F750E6C3-38EE-11D1-85E5-00C04FC295EE}
C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386\driver.cab
C:\WINDOWS\Driver Cache\i386sp2.cab
(Actually the latter two locations simply appeared as I extracted all of the ones that end with DRIVER.CAB onto my C: Drive. There is still no "E:" drive on "my computer.")

Just to clarify/verify: turn off the computer; turn on the computer; at the first activity on the screen press the Delete key; perhaps repeatedly.

This is outside of Windows. This is your motherboard.

Watch the screen closely when you power on: look for Enter BIOS Setup. If not Delete it might be F2.