PC will not start up

[tekwannabe]

I am running WinXP Pro, Cable (road runner)

My pc was running fine today and I turned the pc off (I did not shut down properly, I unplugged it) because a lightening storm came up quickly.

Now when I try to start back up the pc I get a screen that says
the pc did not shut down properly and here are my options:
SAFE MODE
SAFE MODE w/networking
SAFE MODE w/command prompt
LAST Known good configuration
or
Start Windows NOrmally
I tried all of these and the pc keeps rebooting. Any ideas?
Thank you in advance for any help.

[liam858]

Open up your case and check everything is seated properly, and all cables are plugged in tight, and then try booting up leave the case open and see if your fan(s) are spinning, inparticular CPU fan.



Liam

[starshine1980]

I am running WinXP Pro, Cable (road runner)

Now when I try to start back up the pc I get a screen that says
the pc did not shut down properly and here are my options:
SAFE MODE
SAFE MODE w/networking
SAFE MODE w/command prompt
LAST Known good configuration
or
Start Windows NOrmally
I tried all of these and the pc keeps rebooting. Any ideas?
Thank you in advance for any help.

The exact same thing happened to me 2 days ago. And my computer is doing the same thing, rebooting over and over again, no matter which option I choose to start Windows XP with.

I would also like to know if I have any options (other than calling in a tech) in repairing this and getting windows started again.

And I can't open my computer casing, so unfortunately that's not an option for me.

Please help.

[liam858]

Welcome to VDr

And I can't open my computer casing, so unfortunately that's not an option for me

Why not?


Liam

[tekwannabe]

Liam,
I took off the cover, restarted the pc and the fans appear to be working.
I checked my cables but it appears that maybe the hard drive is not being read (just a guess). Any other suggestions? Thank you for your help.

[starshine1980]

Welcome to VDr



Why not?


Liam

Firstly, thanks for the welcome . Second, I can't open the casing because in the design of my PC, there's no tower or anything, it's made to be compact and all built into one. But I haven't moved it or anything, so I'm quite sure everything inside is in working order. It starts up just fine, it just keeps rebooting Windows.

Would you suggest using the repair and recovery console on the Windows XP disk?

[liam858]

I checked my cables but it appears that maybe the hard drive is not being read (just a guess). Any other suggestions? Thank you for your help.

Is the Hard Drive making any noises, and is the read light flashing? may be a good idea to try and boot from the XP disc and enter the recovery console and try reparing the drive if it is showing signs of life.

Insert your XP CD and you should be prompted to boot from it by pressing a key, do so, and then when the options appear press R then choose the installation, which is 1 if you are not dual booting, and then enter the administrators password, you will then come to a command screen, type: FIXMBR and press Enter. to exit type EXIT

Would you suggest using the repair and recovery console on the Windows XP disk

Yes, follow the same instructions above.


Liam

[starshine1980]

Ok. Thanks. I'm going to give that a go now, and see what happens.

[tekwannabe]

Liam,
I tried all the above that you suggested. After I did the repair I received a message:
That the FIXMBR was completed successfully.
The system appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record.
I checked the hard drive and it sounds like it is laboring/working hard to boot up. If you do not have any more suggestions I will take it to a shop. Thank you so much for your help

[104456]

If you know the make of the drive you could run a diagnostic via bootable floppy to see if the harddrive is failing/has failed.
There is a link HERE which will take you to the most popular makes homepages.

[starshine1980]

When the recovery console prompts me to enter the administrator password, is it a keycode or something that was included with windows? Because I don't recall ever setting up any passwords for my computer.

Is there a default password? Because when I try to just [Enter] to skip over it, it tells me that the password is invalid (obviously).

[SuperSparks]

The password it wants is whatever was set when Windows was first installed. If Enter doesn't work, then the passowrd was probably set by the PC manufacturer, assuming that Windows was preinstalled. You'll need to contact them to find out what the p/w is.

[starshine1980]

The password it wants is whatever was set when Windows was first installed. If Enter doesn't work, then the passowrd was probably set by the PC manufacturer, assuming that Windows was preinstalled. You'll need to contact them to find out what the p/w is.

Thanks for the advice! I'll contact them ASAP.

[lhj_131]

Hi,

I have encounter this problem before, I actually put in another working hardware as master and the original pc's harddisk as slave. So when I tigger the CHKDISK, it prompt that there's bad sector in the slave harddisk.

[tekwannabe]

Thanks so much for this tip. I have my tech looking at it now (since I couldn't resolve this myself).