I have a Lenovo Thinkpad T500 notebook (Model # 2081CTO) that I purchased in mid-October of 2009.
I am running a Windows 7 64-bit OS.
Basically, I installed Avast anti-virus on the computer, and after installation, it asked me to restart, but after restarting, instead of loading the OS, it becomes stuck at the initial black screen before it even loads anything.. all it says is "ThinkPad" ... "To interrupt normal startup, press the blue ThinkVantage button. And it also has intel/lenovo logos on the right side. It has nothing to do with Avast, because minutes later I installed it on my other desktop computer, and it restarted just fine.
I tried hitting all the F keys and I tried the thinkvantage button, nothing works. I cannot get into the BIOS, nor the rescue or recovery, or anything. I tried putting in a windows 7 OS CD, but that didn't work either. I don't know whats wrong.
Although it seems like it is a a rare problem based on my google searches, if you click this link, you will see that I am not the only with this problem.
In there, someone suggested some steps to someone else about messing with the CMOS, but it didnt do anything for them. All I have personally done is removed the battery, and have it on AC power, and vice versa, but that does not affect it at all. Still the same problem. I am going to try using PC Doctor and putting that CD in, but I doubt it will help.
I tried calling Lenovo in the middle of the night yesterday and they were not very helpful, they said we will send a box in a few days ... so basically they're going to try and fix it but all my precious data will be erased and it will take weeks before I get my laptop back.. and I need it right now for school!
Try using a linux livecd to bootup your laptop, if it does you can transfer all your data to an external drive. Also paragon has a free utility "paragon rescue kit 9.0 express" that has a file transfer utility. The rescue kit also has a utility that can fix the BCD on vista/7.
worst case scenario that a bootcd won't bootup your computer you can try and piggyback(slave) the hard drive onto a working computer and just transfer the data over. This way you won't lose anything.
While piggybacked(slaved) run a scandisk (with boxes to fix errors checked) on the drive. A corrupt drive will sometimes not boot.
Thanks for the suggestions - but I'm afraid they will be useless because of what I am about to tell you.
I have a new problem :(. And this one was my fault - I did something stupid. I was attempting to back up my data via an external enclosure. So I took my hard drive out of my laptop, but I completely broke off the data connector on the hard drive - the black cover that is covering the golden vertical strips... now the hard drive is useless because there is no data connector.. the golden strips are completely exposed and the black data connector cover is broken in 3 pieces.
I bought another 2.5 SATA laptop hard drive and put that into the laptop, but the same problem occurs. I'm giving up on trying to fix my initial problem... atleast for now. Right now, before I send it in a couple days, I want to back up the data on my hard drive. But I cannot do that anymore because of the broken data cover. There is no way I can fix this on my own. What can I do to fix this?
Lenovo fixed it for me free of charge (the initial problem, and they replaced the hard drive for me as well), they were extremely quick about it too, after the box came, I sent it that day, they got it the next morning and I got it back the day after that - there are certain parts that are customer replaceable that do not void the warranty. The problem was with the motherboard, it fused out or something, they replaced it.
