All, I have an old HP 700 desktop that I was running Ubuntu on and only had one small database loaded. I disconnected the computer took it to someone else's house and now it hangs at the blue HP screen. I did some research and it tried a couple solutions. One was just to open it up and clean it as the theory is the power supply starts getting too warm too fast and it won't fully boot up. The other had to do with the built in card reader and the solution was to unplug it and try booting. Neither solution seems to have had any effect whatsoever. Just to be clear, this is hanging at the initial blue HP invent screen with the F10 system restore and F1 Setup titles at the bottom. The problem is pushing either of those buttons does nothing either. There is nothing hooked up to this computer other than the keyboard and mouse and I've actually tried the "hold the escape key down to force a keyboard error" too with no effect. I'm not really too concerned about the machine itself but I would like to recover the small database that was on it if nothing else. Thanks in advance for the help!! John
Quick update: For some reason I tried booting one more time and it worked. I have no idea why or how as I'd tried all of the ideas and tricks I mentioned above many times each. I'll still listen to any ideas about what could have caused this just in case it pops up again.
I don't have much to say about pre-builts since some of them can be pretty finicky. 1. Make sure the keyboard/mouse/video are all firmly plugged in. Same goes for power. 2. Open the chassis and make sure everything is firmly seated. Do this is a well lit area. Transport can dislodge components, especially those held in by "quick release" device stays that are only quick to release when you don't want them to and never release when you do (Dell are bad about this). If you have doubts, remove any add-in card and reseat them. Check the power connections to each drive and check the data connections to each drive. Pulling them out and plugging them back in can't hurt. I've seen on one or two occasions where very old hard drives ran fine for years but were DOA when moved to a new location.
