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Hello everyone!
Just installed XBMC live on my Sony vaio laptop. First downloaded on desktop and then burned the disc using imgburn. Inserted the cd and rebooted. xBMC runs.....but the problem is I can't go back to my windows even when I take my live disc out. Wanted to play through disc before actual installing on the hard drive. But now I can't access windows. To make it worse...laptop screen doesn't work so I've been using this separate monitor. But as I said....I can access XBMC using disc but how can I go back to windows now?? When the disc is out..I can only hear Sony initial music but noting comes on screen...tried pressing F8, F1 etc..
Please help...
Would really appreciate!,
Thanks in advance to everyone here!
Regards,
Sat fan
Not that I have a sure answer for you, but it sounds a bit like your computer has decided to boot to external screen (so to say). I don't know Vaios by heart, but there should be a keyboard combo of Fn-key (function key) and one more key to toggle between onboard screen and external screen (similar to ctrl-v for paste etc). Both the fn key and the "other key to press" are marked in blue colour on the keys of most laptops and that other key should look something like this.

You can also go into bios setup and see if there's any setting right in the bios of course.
I think it is Fn-F7 on a Sony Vaio...
Thank you!
It's not about changing screen as the screen changes itself to external monitor when XBMC live disc is in...but it doesn't when disc is out.....any ideas.?..so it seems like that it's been set to ONLY XBMC boot and not windows by default....and now that I can't see anything on screen I don't know what additional keys to press.....even tried with live disc in and using exit command at start of XBMC but to no avail...
Thanks Again guys!
Sat fan
So on reboot, pressing the DEL key doesn't get you into BIOS?

Power off the laptop, then power it on and keep hitting DEL until you get to the bios.

However, you should see the splash screen and POST results on starting up the laptop.
Thanks!
Tried delete key but still same....another thing I noticed is that now I do not hear windows music that usually comes before logging in...even after letting it run for a while....
Thanks for your time guys!,
Sat fan
OK. I need to know exactly what you are seeing on the screen when you reboot the PC.

You should see the Sony splash screen and POST results (memory etc...) before the laptop tries to boot into Windows.
Strange but true that I don't see anything even the Sony start screen.....but if I remember before also it usually took a while before the monitor light goes green and then u see this windows logging screen and the accompanied music...
Sat fan
Oh ok ok. I'm an idiot. So your laptop screen doesn't work, which is why you have an external monitor attached.

So the real problem is you don't know what the laptop is trying to boot off (if it is booting windows and just not displaying on the external monitor), or stuck trying to boot of something else, or some other issue.

If you can't hear the windows music, fairly safe bet to say windows isn't loading... and you can still boot XBMC Live, so it boots off CD fine. (thinking out loud).

Tried booting with NO external monitor attached, give the laptop 5 minutes, then attach it?

Tough one when your laptop screen is dead.
No luck.....tried as suggested...I can still access XBMC as the monitor comes on when the disc is in....wonder if I can access the windows settings through XBMC .....
Thanks again....
Sat fan
DJVege Wrote:Oh ok ok. I'm an idiot. So your laptop screen doesn't work, which is why you have an external monitor attached.

Haha, I'm obviously an idiot too, cause I did not understand that either Smile

One double check question: did you run XBMC from the Live CD or did you install it (it's two out of the 3-4 alternatives when booting from the CD)?

Just demo running it from the Live CD should make no alterations to your HD (including boot partition, MBR etc). Fact is it can be run without any HD in the system at all, since it copies and runs itself from a virtual RAM disk.

If you've installed XBMC on the HD I hope that you did so on an empty partition/empty space on the HD and in which case there is a boot option screen to boot either Windows or XBMC, where XBMC is the default alternative if I remember correctly.

Quote:Strange but true that I don't see anything even the Sony start screen.....but if I remember before also it usually took a while before the monitor light goes green and then u see this windows logging screen and the accompanied music...

Does the power LED (green light) at all go on when you boot from the HD or does the external screen seem to stay off?
Thanks for input...still not working...strange that I can't even use my windows or even ubuntu installation cd also..it just doesn't boot or show up on screen....when XBMC cd is in it just starts itself and I remember it asked me couplet times for my login password which I used as XBMC ,....but it never gave me option for installing XBMC on hard drive or reading through disc alone for trial......anyway to check if it's been installed on the hard drive by mistake (in which case I'll be really mad)...anyway to install windows OS again....it just doesn't want to read any other disc other than XBMC.....
Thanks again...
Satfan
Does XBMC indeed make a full boot from the CD? If so there could be at least some room for digging to find the problem since XBMC runs on a pretty much complete (but stripped down) embedded Ubuntu (I believe it is).

So, if you have, or can muster, some command line basics you should be able to see what's on the HD and what's not and perhaps even be able to edit grubs and such. This is however pretty much all beyond my own capacities, so in case you need advice you need to hope for someone else to step in (and/or do some googling).

What I can tell you though is that you access the underlying OS and command line environment by pressing CTRL-ALT-F1 after XBMC has loaded (if it loads).
without the external monitor working outside of an OS, its going to be very difficult to tell whats going on here.
but to me, this sounds like hardware failure & probably the hard drive.

do you get any beeps when you turn it on? and if that answer is no... have you ever heard it beep when you turn it on? (not all laptops have beep codes & i have no idea if yours should or not).