Laptop wont boot or recognize WinXPProSP2/Strange DVD issues

[Zaitsev]

Mainboard: Clevo Co. SANTA ROSA CRB
Chipset: Intel GM965
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo Mobile T7500 @ 2200 MHz
Physical Memory: OCZ DDR2-800 PC6400 (3072 MB)
Video Card: Nvidia Corp GeForce Go 7950 GTX
Hard Disk: Hitachi HTS722020K9SA00 (SATA 7200RPM 200 GB)
DVD-Rom Drive: PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-K17

Please could some one help me figure out this problem that has been persisting for nearly 2 weeks now. I carried out a complete reformat of my hard drive which went well but once the format had completed, where it goes on to copying files from the Win XP CD for installation, around a qauarter of the way through of copying files i got an error saying it could not retrieve a file which was srusbusd.inf. The options were to retry, skip file or quit. I tried retry for a few times but to no avail so i went onto skip file, then another file was unable to be copied so i skipped file and this problem repeated for the next files. Thinking that this would lead to a corrupt installation, i decided to quit installation and start it over again. The problem though is that it wouldn't boot from the CD again. It would keep skipping to boot priorities straight to the hard drive giving me an 'NTLDR Missing' error so i entered BIOS and removed all the hardware in the boot priority list leaving only the DVD drive alone in the list. When i rebooted with only the DVD drive in the boot list and Win XP SP2 CD inserted, i would get an error saying 'Operating System could not be found'. At first i thought it was due to hardware malfunction but it was working perfectly fine before the failed installation (a reformat and failed installation couldn't possibly damage the hardware could it?) so i checked the BIOS and the system map. All hardware was located by the mainboard, nothing was missing. Bios listed the hard drive and the optical drive. To test if it the optical drive was working i tried other boot CDs such as Ultimate Boot CD (UBCD) but that wouldn't work nor would the recovery CD by Acronis. However i had an NTLDR error boot CD (which i had created for a previous computer whIch had the ntldr problem) and inserted it in the DVD drive. This CD would boot, the CD would load up and give me the available options to boot, however the hard drive had just been reformated and so there is no longer an OS and this CD was created for corrupt operating systems. I went through with the boot up anyway and got the error:

'Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: (Windows) root>\system32\hal.dll. Please re-install a copy of the above file'

To get around this problem, i borrowed a friend's laptop and switched in my hard drive into hers and installed Win XP Pro. Upon completion i switched back the hard drive into my laptop. Everything worked fine after reinstalling drivers. However i am having strange problems with my DVD drive. It is being selective on what CDs it will play. Some CDs would work perfectly fine with no problems but others won't even play or be recognized and are treated as if they had not been inserted. CDs that would work include:

Data CDs (burned using the same drive before reformat)
DVD films
Games such as Supreme Commander and Medal of Honour
Some installation CDs such as MatLab 7
NTLDR boot CD would load and i could open and see the contents of the file
The image of the previous hard drive settings archive DVD (Acronis came seperate on a boot CD.

The CDs that would not be recognized (when i used the run command 'Open: D:' it would give me an error message saying 'Please insert a disc into drive D' even though the CD was inserted) that i had tried are:

Windows XP Professional SP2
Nortan Internet Security
Driver Utility Install CD
Ultimate Boot CD
Acronis Recovery CD
Nero Install CD
Power DVD Install CD
Windows 98
Windows XP Home Edition
Music CDs

I have experienced no other problems with my laptop apart from this DVD drive issue. I have seeked help from friends and they too are confused as BIOS detects the DVD drive, the DVD drive has shown that it can play CDs/DVDs (though not all) when logged onto Windows and the motherboard does detect the drive but will not boot up from the Win XP SP2 CD but will from the NTLDR boot CD. Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? Thanks in advance for any help.

[icecube]

Hi Zaitsev

Looks like it could be a heat issue. I've seen people put their laptop on their bed and this literally closes the fan vents and they heat up fast.

My wife bought a flat fan unit that goes under her laptop and the power for it plugs into an empty USB socket. It keeps hers running cool. They run about $15.

You could try to vacuum out the vents. Don't use compressed air, it just packs the dirt in tighter.

You could check out the hard drive with Norton's System Works. I have seen hard drives go flaky before they go bad.

Data is being written to the hard drive. The XP install is checking file sizes when it writes the file to disk. If the hard drive has bad sectors, the check sum will fail If the CPU is overheating, that too will cause garbage to be written to the drive.

Then there is the possibility that the DVD is bad.

See if you can do an install with a cooling fan under the laptop as a first step.