Calling all nerds-

bigjim
bigjim Posts: 780
edited April 2008 in The bottom bracket
-or those more intelligent than me.
Not cycling related. Computer problem. PC decided out of the blue not to bother to load. Running XP. Screen gives me XP logo then screen offering safe mode options etc. If left alone keeps trying to load windows and going back to safe mode screen. Tried all options with same result. Been into cmos and told it to load from CD and inserted XP disc. Nothing. Saved original startup settings in CMOS. Nothing. I now have nothing. can anybody help?

Jim :cry:
Nothing to prove. http://adenough1.blogspot.co.uk/

Comments

  • vermooten
    vermooten Posts: 2,697
    Does it load in safe mode ok?
    You just have to ride like you never have to breathe again.

    Manchester Wheelers
  • weedy1
    weedy1 Posts: 143
    My guess is corruption on the hard drive or failure of the drive. If you can get to the repair option of your xp disc go into it (you may have to change the 'boot from' option in CMOS to boot off your D: first, not your hard drive). Havn't done this for a while so my memory is a bit bad but when you get to the dos promty bit type CHKDSK. Let it do its thing. It quite often asks you if you want to repair at the end or fix errors or something so do it. Then run it again. Shutdown then turn on hopefully all good.
    I'm not a big geek but I've fixed my pals laptop like this and it sounds similar to what was going on with his.

    Luck.
  • turkeytickler
    turkeytickler Posts: 640
    If it loads ok in safe mode, look in Event Viewer (right click My Computer, select Manage, you should be able to find it in there somewhere). This may give you a clue about what is causing it to fail to load. The culprit is likely to be in the System section.
  • bigjim
    bigjim Posts: 780
    Thanks for help. However
    No it will not boot in safe or any of the other option modes.
    I have asked it to boot off disc in cmos but it will not do so.
    Need to get to screen where I can type in read D but do not know how to do this. Am trying not to reformat as will lose info.

    Jim :?
    Nothing to prove. http://adenough1.blogspot.co.uk/
  • vermooten
    vermooten Posts: 2,697
    +1 for hard drive failure
    You just have to ride like you never have to breathe again.

    Manchester Wheelers
  • Shadowduck
    Shadowduck Posts: 845
    bigjim wrote:
    Am trying not to reformat as will lose info.
    If the hard drive has failed you may be able to save at least some of the data by booting from a Linux live CD and copying the files to a USB drive. I'm pretty sure a quick Google will bring up instructions.
    Even if the voices aren't real, they have some very good ideas.
  • turkeytickler
    turkeytickler Posts: 640
    If your drive is corrupt it is probably either because of some harsh treatment (e.g. power offs when the drive head is in mid write) or some other hardware problem. Either way you wont know for sure and therefore either way I would suggest you replace the drive.

    If you are going to replace the drive you have a solution out of the box.

    Buy a new one, connect it up so that it is the primary drive, leaving the old one connected as the secondary drive (exactly how you do this depends on your motherboard, IDE or SATA are the likely technologies you should google for but in IDE land you would set the Master jumper on the new drive, then slave or "Cable Select" (CS) on the old drive and install them on the same channel), install your OS again. This would give you two hard drives, c: being the new one with the OS on and D: being the old one. Anything recoverable will be similarly copyable from D: to C:. Once you have recovered it you could even reformat d: (if you want to risk it) and use it as a backup drive or something similar....
  • scapaslow
    scapaslow Posts: 305
    You could try the msdos command c:/BOOTCFG /REBUILD

    This will rebuild a boot file for you. Might be worth a shot. It certainly helped me the last time my computer refused to boot.

    Good luck.
  • bigjim
    bigjim Posts: 780
    Thanks. Any idea how I get to msdos command screen.

    Jim
    Nothing to prove. http://adenough1.blogspot.co.uk/
  • on the road
    on the road Posts: 5,631
    Hopefully you will have made a bootable floppy while installing windows :wink:
  • redvee
    redvee Posts: 11,922
    on the road wrote:
    Hopefully you will have made a bootable floppy while installing windows :wink:

    Floppy Disk??? What are those?? Not got a Floppy Drive on my PC. Guess you mean use a small usb pen type thing?
    I've added a signature to prove it is still possible.
  • on the road
    on the road Posts: 5,631
    You've not got a floppy drive? :shock:

    shock horror :shock:
  • on the road
    on the road Posts: 5,631
    I'd draw a diagram for you but I'm hopeless at drawing.
  • redvee
    redvee Posts: 11,922
    Somehow I've managed to lose my A & B drive. Can find C, D & E no prob :roll:
    I've added a signature to prove it is still possible.
  • on the road
    on the road Posts: 5,631
    You're not likely to have a B drive anyway unless you've got 2 floppy drives, the B drive is a throwback to the old days of DOS, before Windows was invented.
  • redvee
    redvee Posts: 11,922
    That ah actually answered a Q I've had about PCs for ages, despite the sarcasm I ahve leaned something new this morning.

    A - Floppy 3.5"
    B - Other Floppy Drive
    C - Main HDD
    D - Optical Drive CD/DVD R/RW etc
    E ---- Other HDD installed on PC
    F - External HDD

    Any other drives such as USB pens/ Memory cards will be labeled with consecetive letters.
    I've added a signature to prove it is still possible.
  • bigjim
    bigjim Posts: 780
    no no bootable floppy. Got a windows 98 one though. Also have Sons PC running XP can I make a bootable one off that?

    Jim
    Nothing to prove. http://adenough1.blogspot.co.uk/
  • scapaslow
    scapaslow Posts: 305
    You should boot your PC with the original Windows XP CD that came with your computer. Then you can get into DOS.
  • HungryCol
    HungryCol Posts: 532
    ...also use www.carbonite.com to backup your data. I have done this and finally all my pictures and music files are safe and sound in the event that my PC decides enough is enough.
    Every winner has scars.
  • on the road
    on the road Posts: 5,631
    The Windows98 boot-up floppy might not recognise the hard drive depending on how it was formatted, usually Windows XP formats the hard drive to NTFS while Windows98 formats it to FAT32.

    I agree with what others have said, I think it IS the hard drive that's gone. The thing is, you won't know unless you have another (working) hard drive.
  • Harry B
    Harry B Posts: 1,239
    bigjim wrote:
    -or those more intelligent than me.
    Not cycling related. Computer problem. PC decided out of the blue not to bother to load. Running XP. Screen gives me XP logo then screen offering safe mode options etc. If left alone keeps trying to load windows and going back to safe mode screen. Tried all options with same result. Been into cmos and told it to load from CD and inserted XP disc. Nothing. Saved original startup settings in CMOS. Nothing. I now have nothing. can anybody help?

    Jim :cry:

    Have you tried turning it off and waiting a few minutes? That's what the useless IT bods at my work say whenever I have a problem :? It must be the first thing they teach at IT school :wink:
    www.justgiving.com/thetwodaves
  • Shadowduck
    Shadowduck Posts: 845
    bigjim wrote:
    no no bootable floppy. Got a windows 98 one though. Also have Sons PC running XP can I make a bootable one off that?

    Jim
    You can download a bootdisk image here.
    Even if the voices aren't real, they have some very good ideas.
  • oldwelshman
    oldwelshman Posts: 4,733
    It does sound like a hdisk problem but even if it is you are going to need to set your bios to boot from d drive to re install/repair windows.
    You need to go into bios and normall you select boot options, then hightlight the cd drive option and select up arrow to promote it to top of boot sequence.
    The problem may also be a virus as I had similar symptoms on another laptop recently, but if your not aprticulalry good with pc's it will be quicker and easier to format and re install software anyway :D
    http://s290.photobucket.com/albums/ll245/oldwelshman/
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aK5Bfqj5fxY
  • bigjim
    bigjim Posts: 780
    struggling. Can anybody tell me how to get to the Dos command screem in XP. what do I press on startup?

    Jim :cry:
    Nothing to prove. http://adenough1.blogspot.co.uk/
  • redddraggon
    redddraggon Posts: 10,862
    bigjim wrote:
    struggling. Can anybody tell me how to get to the Dos command screem in XP. what do I press on startup?

    Jim :cry:
    F8

    Or you can do from windows:

    "windows button" + r

    then type cmd
    I like bikes...

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  • fossyant
    fossyant Posts: 2,549
    Is your drive a SATA type one - i.e. uses the small connectors - it's not uncommon for these to cause a fault - it does it on my RAID setup (2 hard drives with the same info) - just go inside the case, unplug the hd cable at the HD and motherboard and re-connect - I do need to buy some new cables....

    I searched on the web and this is an issue with SATA cables.

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