Lenovo Z710 boot-loop

[Jonathan Lemmens]

A friend asked me if I could fix his laptop. When I power it on it shows the Lenovo loading screen for a while and then goes black and it repeats or sometimes the screen just stays black.

I can't get in the BIOS but I can access the recovery menu through spamming F8 but every option I select from there sets me back at the broken loading screen...

I've removed the battery, power cord and the CMOS battery for a few minutes but this didn't help. Does anyone have another idea to fix this?

[Indus Monk]

there is a small button on the front of the lenovo laptop called the "novo key", press it with a pen tip and try to reinstall windows...

 

THE novo key is used for selecting boot media

[Jonathan Lemmens]

5 minutes ago, AmbarChakrabarti said:

there is a small button on the front of the lenovo laptop called the "novo key", press it with a pen tip and try to reinstall windows...

 

THE novo key is used for selecting boot media

Thanks, that worked at least a little.

 

I can get in the BIOS now but even after loading factory default settings it's still boot-looping

From here, system recovery still doesn't work and when I chose the boot menu the only options are EFI network 0 for IPv4 or EFI network 0 for IPv6, no HDD, DVD or USB.

[Naeaes]

5 minutes ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

Thanks, that worked at least a little.

 

I can get in the BIOS now but even after loading factory default settings it's still boot-looping

From here, system recovery still doesn't work and when I chose the boot menu the only options are EFI network 0 for IPv4 or EFI network 0 for IPv6, no HDD, DVD or USB.

I'd be willing to bet this is a case of broken HDD. Can you verify? Plug it in a working system and see if it's accessible?

[Jonathan Lemmens]

1 minute ago, Naeaes said:

I'd be willing to bet this is a case of broken HDD. Can you verify? Plug it in a working system and see if it's accessible?

Sure, i'll try.... thanks

[Jonathan Lemmens]

2 minutes ago, Naeaes said:

I'd be willing to bet this is a case of broken HDD. Can you verify? Plug it in a working system and see if it's accessible?

But even if the HDD is broken, Shouldn't the DVD show up in the boot menu?

[Naeaes]

4 minutes ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

But even if the HDD is broken, Shouldn't the DVD show up in the boot menu?

It should but that's not always the case. Think of the sata devices as people in a queue and the sata controller going to them one by one to ask who they are and what they want. If the first device in the row won't answer or the answer is corrupted or cuts off or what ever, the controller can crash or be "left hanging". Meanwhile the UEFI waits the controller to report for some time, gets no response and tells you there are no drives. Removing the bad drive from the queue would cause the rest to recognize in this example. 

[Jonathan Lemmens]

2 minutes ago, Naeaes said:

It should but that's not always the case. Think of the sata devices as people in a queue and the sata controller going to them one by one to ask who they are and what they want. If the first device in the row won't answer or the answer is corrupted or cuts off or what ever, the controller can crash or be "left hanging". Meanwhile the UEFI waits the controller to report for some time, gets no response and tells you there are no drives. Removing the bad drive from the queue would cause the rest to recognize in this example. 

OK, I took the HDD out, and the same thing still happens, it only wants to boot from the network.

 

However when I put the laptop's HDD in my PC, it is detected by the BIOS but the pc freezes on windows startup (when booting from my own system). My drives are configured in AHCI and the laptop's HDD might not be. Anyway, it's not looking good for this HDD

[Naeaes]

5 minutes ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

OK, I took the HDD out, and the same thing still happens, it only wants to boot from the network.

 

However when I put the laptop's HDD in my PC, it is detected by the BIOS but the pc freezes on windows startup (when booting from my own system). My drives are configured in AHCI and the laptop's HDD might not be. Anyway, it's not looking good for this HDD

Uhh. No. Multi-organ failure, maybe... Your PC should not act up if the drive was 100% even if it wasn't originally in an AHCI system. But since you have AHCI in the PC, you should try booting it up and plugging this HDD in the OS. AHCI should allow it to recognize on the fly. But be careful with the sata connector. If it's skewed, it can short. If you do get it running that way, try reading the smart data. Preferably with the manufacturer's own program. Seagate Seatools or WD data lifeguard. Since it's Lenovo, it's probably Seagate. Is it even necessary to worry about data recovery here? This is starting to sound like having to RMA the whole thing.

[Jonathan Lemmens]

1 minute ago, Naeaes said:

Uhh. No. Multi-organ failure, maybe... Your PC should not act up if the drive was 100% even if it wasn't originally in an AHCI system. But since you have AHCI in the PC, you should try booting it up and plugging this HDD in the OS. AHCI should allow it to recognize on the fly. But be careful with the sata connector. If it's skewed, it can short. If you do get it running that way, try reading the smart data. Preferably with the manufacturer's own program. Seagate Seatools or WD data lifeguard. Since it's Lenovo, it's probably Seagate. Is it even necessary to worry about data recovery here? This is starting to sound like having to RMA the whole thing.

I or rather my friend doesn't care about the data and if just the HDD is broken he'll just buy a new one.

 

In the BIOS under boot priority the only options were "UEFI" or "Legacy support" when I enabled legacy support it suddenly boots off of the DVD immediately  windows 7 setup is loading for a few minutes now but nothing much seems to happen.

[Naeaes]

1 hour ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

I or rather my friend doesn't care about the data and if just the HDD is broken he'll just buy a new one.

 

In the BIOS under boot priority the only options were "UEFI" or "Legacy support" when I enabled legacy support it suddenly boots off of the DVD immediately  windows 7 setup is loading for a few minutes now but nothing much seems to happen.

Doesn't sound good to me. If you boot from Legacy to the OS installer (doesn't matter if it's USB, DVD, network or HDD) the OS that it installs, won't support UEFI. A modern laptop without UEFI support can end up being pretty crappy. Slow and all. Hope you guys can sort it out. I can't think of anything more without getting my hands on the device. But if there's any way, install the OS with UEFI boot mode.

[Jonathan Lemmens]

1 minute ago, Naeaes said:

Doesn't sound good to me. If you boot from Legacy to the OS installer (doesn't matter if it's USB, DVD, network or HDD) the OS that it installs, won't support UEFI. A modern laptop without UEFI support can end up being pretty crappy. Slow and all. Hope you guys can sort it out. I can't think of anything more without getting my hands on the device. But if there's any way, install the OS with UEFI boot mode.

Thanks, I've been able to get the HDD working in my PC, and indeed Crystal Disk Info reports several bad sectors. 

 

In the mean time I put an old (known to work) 32GB SSD in the laptop and tried to install windows on that to see if the rest of the laptop works properly. The SSD is detected by the BIOS (regardless of UEFI or legacy mode) but it does not show up in the windows setup..... Could something else be broken in this laptop?

 

[Naeaes]

2 minutes ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

Thanks, I've been able to get the HDD working in my PC, and indeed Crystal Disk Info reports several bad sectors. 

 

In the mean time I put an old (known to work) 32GB SSD in the laptop and tried to install windows on that to see if the rest of the laptop works properly. The SSD is detected by the BIOS (regardless of UEFI or legacy mode) but it does not show up in the windows setup..... Could something else be broken in this laptop?

 

The DVD that you're using to install the OS. Is it newer or older than the laptop itself? You know, the OS installer is a tiny OS in itself and it needs to have the sata/ahci/raiddrives to recognize any sata devices. So if it's your run-of-the-mill Win 7 installation DVD from 2009, I'd bet it simply doesn't have the correct drivers included. You can get around it by downloading the drivers from Lenovo and placing them on a USB stick, then loading the drives in the installer and then it should detect the SSD.

[Jonathan Lemmens]

2 minutes ago, Naeaes said:

The DVD that you're using to install the OS. Is it newer or older than the laptop itself? You know, the OS installer is a tiny OS in itself and it needs to have the sata/ahci/raiddrives to recognize any sata devices. So if it's your run-of-the-mill Win 7 installation DVD from 2009, I'd bet it simply doesn't have the correct drivers included. You can get around it by downloading the drivers from Lenovo and placing them on a USB stick, then loading the drives in the installer and then it should detect the SSD.

Yeah, I'm using win 7. Do I need specific drivers or can I just google for "lenovo Z710 drivers"?

[Naeaes]

13 minutes ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

Yeah, I'm using win 7. Do I need specific drivers or can I just google for "lenovo Z710 drivers"?

That's how you get rootkit viruses. Don't do it.  Go to http://support.lenovo.com and get the drivers from there. You'll probably have best luck finding stuff at the Lenovo website with the serial number of the machine.

[Jonathan Lemmens]

2 minutes ago, Naeaes said:

That's how you get rootkit viruses. Don't do it.  Go to http://support.lenovo.com and get the drivers from there. You'll probably have best luck finding stuff at the Lenovo website with the serial number of the machine.

I've been looking here already, but then it gives me a list of drivers and utilities, none of which really seem relevant

 

I've tried the chipset drivers and the "CPPC Platform driver" neither are detected as compatible in windows setup. 

[Naeaes]

13 minutes ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

I've been looking here already, but then it gives me a list of drivers and utilities, none of which really seem relevant

 

I've tried the chipset drivers and the "CPPC Platform driver" neither are detected as compatible in windows setup. 

I think it's the one called Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver. By the looks of it they only provide the exe installer. That won't work in the installation. You have to install the exe on some other computer, and then find the driver files. It's usually called something along the lines if iastora.sys, but it depends on stuff. Just get all .sys and .ini files. The installation will be able to tell them apart and pick the correct one.

[Jonathan Lemmens]

3 minutes ago, Naeaes said:

I think it's the one called Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver. By the looks of it they only provide the exe installer. That won't work in the installation. You have to install the exe on some other computer, and then find the driver files. It's usually called something along the lines if iastora.sys, but it depends on stuff. Just get all .sys and .ini files. The installation will be able to tell them apart and pick the correct one.

Alright, sounds like tricky stuff. Can I find these files neatly in program files or will they be scattered in the windows directory? And will this even work on my AMD based PC?

[Naeaes]

1 minute ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

Alright, sounds like tricky stuff. Can I find these files neatly in program files or will they be scattered in the windows directory? And will this even work on my AMD based PC?

It might be fine. Some auto-extracting installers detect the hardware and won't run. That'd be a problem. But you need to try to be able to tell. Take note of the extraction directory and the installation directory. They might end up neatly at like C:\Lenovo\Drivers\ or scattered somewhere in the %AppData% or %ProgramData% or C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\ I can't remember exactly. Maybe they even ask you where you want to extract the temporary files.  

[Jonathan Lemmens]

1 minute ago, Naeaes said:

It might be fine. Some auto-extracting installers detect the hardware and won't run. That'd be a problem. But you need to try to be able to tell. Take note of the extraction directory and the installation directory. They might end up neatly at like C:\Lenovo\Drivers\ or scattered somewhere in the %AppData% or %ProgramData% or C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\ I can't remember exactly. Maybe they even ask you where you want to extract the temporary files.  

It doesn't work  

The .exe file installs another .exe file that I cannot run because "platform incompatible".... fml....

 

I've got an older intel Q6600 pc gathering dust somewhere, I could use that for this, But isn't there an easier way? 

[Naeaes]

6 minutes ago, Jonathan Lemmens said:

It doesn't work  

The .exe file installs another .exe file that I cannot run because "platform incompatible".... fml....

 

I've got an older intel Q6600 pc gathering dust somewhere, I could use that for this, But isn't there an easier way? 

I think I may have found a good one here: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/22271/AHCI-Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Driver-for-Intel-Desktop-Boards at the left, not the top one but the one ending f6flpy and so on. Here's a half-explanation of what's going on I stumbled upon while looking for the driver: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/boards-and-kits/000005611.html The F6 Floppy thing it talks about is a kind of a joke. This same exact thing has been a huge pain in the ass for Windows XP all thoughout it's history with the added bonus of you needing to Press F6 during the installation to get to the menu and the original XP only supported the old floppy disks for this, not USB or the driver CD.

Which reminds me... Maybe there's a DVD that came with the laptop? With Windows 7 it's possible to remove the installation DVD, pop the driver CD in, load the drivers and put the DVD back in before continuing.

[Jonathan Lemmens]

31 minutes ago, Naeaes said:

I think I may have found a good one here: https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/22271/AHCI-Intel-Rapid-Storage-Technology-Driver-for-Intel-Desktop-Boards at the left, not the top one but the one ending f6flpy and so on. Here's a half-explanation of what's going on I stumbled upon while looking for the driver: http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/boards-and-kits/000005611.html The F6 Floppy thing it talks about is a kind of a joke. This same exact thing has been a huge pain in the ass for Windows XP all thoughout it's history with the added bonus of you needing to Press F6 during the installation to get to the menu and the original XP only supported the old floppy disks for this, not USB or the driver CD.

Which reminds me... Maybe there's a DVD that came with the laptop? With Windows 7 it's possible to remove the installation DVD, pop the driver CD in, load the drivers and put the DVD back in before continuing.

Thanks! the SSD is detected by the Windows setup, but i think there might be a few compatibility issues. when I load these drivers it shows a warning saying this system isn't compatible with 64-bit, even when I do load the 32-bit driver. Whether I load the 64- or the 32-bit driver, my 32GB SSD shows up as a 64GB drive and windows cant be installed because "This computer's hardware does not support booting to this disk".

 

I guess this adventure ends here. We'll just need to get a new SSD for this thing.

Thanks again for the help!