Computer help please.

[KenM]

The other day when I turned on my desktop, I got a message saying " windows XP did not shut down normally when you last shut down. Do you want to: Boot in safe mode, boot in safe mode with networking, boot in safe mode with command promp, or boot the last time the computer booted safely, normal mode." EVERY option I try, it looks like its going to boot but then goes back to that screen. When I try to boot in safe mode, it does a long string of commands but then goes back to that screen. I can get to the BIOS but not sure what to look for in there. Anyone have any ideas?

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Something at a low level is screwed up. I usually see this with laptops that have hard drive damage that screws with the bootup stuff. Spinrite usually fixes that.

If it's not damage to the hard drive and just corrupted files, you could try a repair install with the XP CD. This presumes you have a real XP CD and not a 'recovery' CD from the PC manufacturer.

If that doesn't work, you could also try making a BartPE disc that would at least let you get at the hard drive to back up important stuff prior to slicking it and re-installing everything from scratch.

 

[Redrobes]

Very unlikely to be a problem with BIOS. Its something with your OS that is not working or there is a bit of hardware that is failing and once the OS tries to talk to it then it kills it. Its difficult to say exactly what to do without seeing the problem and see what others have to say first but I reckon you might need to think about a system restore - probably from a windows restore CD.

Im reading this assuming that once you go into safe mode then it automatically reboots back to the BIOS and starts up again with the boot options... If you can get it to stick in safe mode then you might be able to figure out what is killing it. The event log lists previous system errors which might have a list of the boot errors. That would probably tell you what is wrong.

 

[KenM]

I called a computer place near me and they said its most likely something got corrupted in the boot order and they are going to take care of it tomorrow. Looks like i did not loose anything.