Re: Memory
Lee,
Certainly sounds like a BIOS issue - The BIOS is holding the machine at a point before even the bootsector gets a look in - Windows might as well not exist at this point....
Basically it goes like this (Apologies to all who know this already, just trying to problem solve)
1) User its power switch
2) Juice flows to all major components, allowing processor to start, hard disk spin-up etc
3) BIOS (an EEPROM [electrically erasable programmable read only memory]) loads its instruction into processor and carries out self check, then checks hardware (this is the bit when all the messages scroll up the screen to quickly to read most of the time).
4) If all the hardware is OK, then the BIOS goes looking for something to boot (The whole process is actually called bootstrap, as the computer literally gets itself going by picking itself up by its own bootstraps with no help - sorry useless history lesson :-)
5) BIOS usually detects bootable partition (Either CD or hard-drive) then DOS, followed by Windows takes over (even on XP)....
So, the key is to work out where all this is falling over.... then identifying what is causing the fall over.
Fair to say, memory can be picky, even on generic PC beige boxes, so on a "brand" laptop such as a Sony (And I know, it shouldn't make any difference, but...)? At this point a BIOS flash might work, but that can cause a fully non-bootable, non recoverable (as in send back to Sony) machine.
I bow to any better advice as I admit I am out of ideas at this point.... :-{
Regards,
Shuttlebus