please help i'm a college student...my life is on this computer and i need it on fast. i've done everything i can personally think of and what some people have told me to do...it will not turn on what so ever like the screen will not but the power light will light up and so will the 3 lights above the wireless light all turn on just not the screen and i can hear the hard drive... please help i don't want to take it into a shop i cannot afford that..

Thank you!
Rachel

A couple ideas.

With the computer turned on, can you see any "dark" images/text on the screen by looking at different angles?

Can you connect an external display to the computer? Your screen might have a failed internal backlight, and if that is the problem you can use an external display until you can get it fixed/replaced. Your manual should tell you how to do this.

I would bet that someone has an extra display they can loan you for a bit. Of course, if this is the problem and if this is a laptop (as I suspect), you won't be very "mobile" until the computer is fixed or replaced.

The good news would be that if that is the problem, you can tell the repair/warranty folks what is most likely required (replace the backlight bulbs and/or backlight power supply in the screen). Those are not expensive but they may try to charge you a lot anyway. It could be cheaper to replace the entire screen (although they sometimes will try to replace it with a used screen, so be careful), and in some cases it could even be better to replace the entire computer. I know you said you couldn't afford a repair, but you ultimately may have no choice. However, some fellow student computer users may be willing to try fixing your backlights so you might ask around. It can be very tricky depending on the laptop model. But, all you might have to buy in that case would be parts and pizza.


However, if it isn't just the backlight and the computer isn't even booting successfully, then...

Since you said, I'm assuming you mean that the data on the hard disk are critical to you.

If that's the case, I know you probably won't like this because it will slow things down, but I'd strongly recommend the very first thing you do is backup the hard drive. Take it to a friend's computer and use a hard-disk IDE/SATA to USB adapter (~US$20) (or whatever will work with your disk and their computer). Then use a program like freeware DriveImageXML or similar to backup the drive.

When a system has a catastrophic failure (e.g. where it won't even begin to boot), it's quite possible that any diagnostics you try, or suggested fixes may contribute to corrupt your data on the disk. Thus, a backup is a good idea.

In fact, it's a good idea in such cases (e.g. where it doesn't even go through POST) to debug the computer as much as possible without the hard disk being connected.

your probobly experiencing hard drive problems. i sufferd the exact same problem, the hard drive turns on but the screen remains black, this computer hard drive usualy experiences this problem. for the data transfer i dont know what to say, last time i checked you will need to take it to a shop to transfer the info, but they may just end up replacing the hardrive. if you backed up your data onto the "d" hard drive, then you might be able to recover it after you get the new hard drive.

hope this helps.

Remove hard drive( all you need to have is a screw driver to remove the 2 screws that hold the cover of the hard drive and to gently pull up the hard drive), turn compute on, screen now comes on fine, shut computer, re-install hard drive, your computer should now be working fine.
This is for the F700 Compaq series.

Remove hard drive( all you need to have is a screw driver to remove the 2 screws that hold the cover of the hard drive and to gently pull up the hard drive), turn compute on, screen now comes on fine, shut computer, re-install hard drive, your computer should now be working fine.
This is for the F700 Compaq series.