I have the sager 9860 and it is freezing on STARTUP. In safe mode it freezes at the blue screen where you select which user. On normal start up it freezes at the windows loading screen. I can enter bios WITHOUT any problem. Unfortunately with the 9860 you cannot use the hitachi hard drive test disc. Does any one have any ideas or suggestions on what the issue could be? I am leaning away from it being a hard drive issue because in safe mode it knows the different users so the machine is accessing the hard drive to some degree.

Thanks in advance for any advice y'all may have. what os do you have??XPDoesnt sound good.  You mention it freezes in safe mode at the user selection screen.  Is that before or after you try to login?  Safe mode should really be able to load, somethings got the operating systems messed up good.  you may need to reinstall.  I hope you have backups. freezes the log in screen where you get to choose between you and the admin user.  Tried to use xp recovery disc to do a repair but unfortunately computer is not reading that the disc is in drive.  Went into bios and changed boot order so it would read disc first, still didnt  work.What does it say on this CD ? ?I dont have it in front of me but it says something like " ...for use on medion(sp?) computers only, xp recovery disc..."  Ill check later to confirm (im at work), but it is definately the xp recovery disc.  I have used it on other comps recently.Ok, I have the disk now. Midern Computer Inc. Recovery CD-ROM for Windows XP Home Edition with Service Pack2.  For distribution Only with a New PC.

I'm trying to remember some of the specs on my machine.  It is a Sager 9860-S.  Windows XP operated. 60 Gig hard drive, 2 gigs of ram.  I have the driver disk in case y'all think there is something on there I can use.

I defrag and clean the drive every one to two weeks and run a virus/spyware program at the same time.  Any suggestions will be gladly appreciated because Sager tech wants me to buy a new hard drive and see if that FIXES it.  I would like to make sure that it is the issue before I do it so I'm not stuck with an extra drive if it isn't.mine did the samething on my laptop with vista.  i went to killdisk.com and wipe the hard drive completely and reinstalled and worked great.  hope that helps a littleI defrag and clean the drive every one to two weeks and run a virus/spyware program at the same time.

If you did in fact do this every 1 or 2 Weeks i would find it quite likely that your hard drive is in fact spent

Doing so many Disk intensive things at the same time will shorten the life of any disk.

If i were you id Take the disk out put it in a second computer and try to pull any important FILES off it before it becomes totally unreadable.

and buy a new Drive

The XP CD does not match the machine you are trying to install it on...
Perhaps this is part of the dilemna...Its the one that came with the laptop, and it looks like it lines up with the Microsoft sticker for windows.  Windows XP Home Edition, Midern.  What disk should I be using?OK i misundestood...Sagern was given as the manuf in your 1st post...Midern is probably just a reseller.
If the CD version matches what's installed it should work fine...
Watch closely the next time you restart for a message that says "Press___to enter setup"
Then using that command on re-boot you need to set the CDROM as 1st boot priority in the Advanced Menu screen.
It should then boot to the XP CD...Went into bios and changes the boot order so it would go there first.  I also tried on the second drive and a USB drive.  Tried all 3 with no luck while CHANGING the boot order in bios.   I don't know if that is a sign of something.Did you hit F10 after making the changes to "Save Changes and Exit" ? ?