Dead Pavilion zv5120us laptop

[najaboy]

Hello,
System is a three year old HP Pavilion zv5120us with XP Home SP2. The problem initially started as a recurring BSOD with stop error 0x000000f4. KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR was displayed one time with this stop error. After the initial BSOD, restarting Windows normally took from five to ten minutes. Subsequent BSODs happened within minutes of eaach restart. I was able to boot into safe mode without apparent problems. The next day, even safe mode fell victim to the BSOD.

I reseated the RAM only to find that the problem had worsened. The system will not boot to Windows now. Upon restart, the HP logo appears and I am able to boot into the BIOS, but that is all. If I let the computer boot past that, I am faced with a black screen. The HDD light comes on for a moment, and then not at all. Other lights (touchpad, caps lock, num lock, etc) all illuminate and can be turned on and off with their respective keys.

I've run HP's HDD diagnostic test in the BIOS with no indicated errors. Also, I have tried booting from a recovery cd with no luck.

The only item I have removed for troubleshooting thus far is the RAM. With it removed, the problem does not change.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

[Joel Gosnell]

I dont know if the problem is fixed ..If not have you tryed to reinstall the OS? Is the Hdd Bad?
Secondly is there a update for the bios?

Bets Regards

[najaboy]

The laptop is still dead, for all intents and purposes. I'm unable to reinstall the OS, as it will not boot from cd or hdd.

For what it's worth, the hdd diagnostic tool within HP's BIOS shows no defects with the drive.

No updates were available for the BIOS.

[chuckbake]

I have a question, whether there has been any resolution to this reported Pavilion death?
I'm also a newbie on this site as of 12/17/07; A customer just called with an identical HP laptop ZV5120us Pavilion unable to startup. Reported system began hanging occasionally, then more often, she did not record errors until last one just last week. Error: PXT-E61: media test failure; check cable; PXT-MOF: exiting PXT ROM. "The end"
System has not started since then. Power On makes sounds, screen flashes, unreadable, no cursor on black screen. Talked her through troubleshooting, no disk in drive, nothing but power supply connected. Both hard disk tests from BIOS pass. Reset BIOS options to default, no help.

[chuckbake]

To Najaboy or others:
From ChuckBake; re; also have fairly dead Pavilion ZV5120us, same error.
I just returned from customer's, found boot sector and unknown additional of drive not accessible. Visus scan found no virus problem. Booted from original OS disk, HD settings all ok. reading HD seems to start reading OK, then heads starts chattering with re-reads. Error messages prevail. Customer considers this a good reason to get a new laptop. If I can, I plan to mount HD (as secondary) in an old system I have at home, to see if I can bring up enough to get some pictures and documents off for customer. I find it interesting that the BIOS hard disk tests on these notebooks don't detect any problems. Not must use at best, deceptive to troubleshooting.

[andypalmer2007]

I had the same problem with my zv5120us. At the black screen just hit F1. It's halting on an error. Anyway you most likely have a bios problem and need to re-install it. Windows is fine and so is your hard drive although bios problems will cause bad sectors to be written to your disc. Download HDD Regenerator 1.51 and make a bootable cd with it. Boot up your computer and scan. It will find and restore bad hard drive sectors. Make sure in the meantime that until you reinstall your bios you're going to have to hit F1 after the logo screen ebvery time you reboot. Re-install your system bios after you scan with HDD Regenerator1.51 and you should be fine. You should be able to download this program anywhere as it's freeware.