There’s a laptop on my office floor. It’s a sad laptop. One front panel LED is steady red. That indicates the battery is now there for weight alone! That’s not the real problem.
The computer fires up and operates fine for a while, maybe a few minutes or even an hour. Then it stops… but in a really odd way.
The spinning round Windows Vista icon that says “I’m working” appears on the screen. From that point forward the computer becomes unresponsive.
Here’s my problem. It’s tough to describe that little spinning icon and the subsequent hang up. What’s the spinner’s name? Without it it’s tough to find other people who’ve had this experience and figured out how to fix it!
The real secret of troubleshooting is feeding specifics into Google and going to school. Without a good description there’s no way to get a good answer.
My last resort is to reformat the drive and start from scratch. I can do that. I’d rather not.