Urgent help needed, xp restrts during startup

Patricide

Was putting some stuff onto my ipod there when the chair hit off my computer plug and it turned it off, when i turned on the computer again all was going fine untill it went to the windows xp loading bar thing and then it went to a blue screen for about half a second and restarted.

Anyone have any similar experiances, i have some stuff for work on that computer which i need by tonight or im boned. I could just reinstall windows but i NEED that stuff and i dont have anybackups (stupid as hell i know).

ethernet

I guess the blue screen doesn't stay there long enough for you to get much information about it.

I'd suggest you either:

• try repairing the Windows install using your Windows CD
• gain access to another PC and download a live CD, such as Ubuntu Linux, and boot the PC off that to enable you to get the documents you need -- you could copy them to a memory stick

Don't reinstall Windows -- you'll erase everything in the process.

Patricide

howd i go about repairing the windows install?

floydmoon1

if you have a windows xp cd put it in.make sure the bios is set to boot from cd before hard drive.when it is booting from cd it should say press any key to boot.do this.it will strart loading windows.a screen will come up with 3 options.press enter to install windows(select this one even though you want to repair).it should find a previous version of windows and it will ask you if you want to repair.click r to repair.this should sort it out

homehelptech

When booting up, keep pressing F8 until you get the option to go into safe mode. If the system boots up in safe mode then see if there is anything obvious wrong when the boot up completes. If not, shutdown and reboot normally. If you're lucky, just booting into safe mode may give the operating system the chance to put things to rights.

Patricide

yea tried in safe mode, and when i put in the windows cd nothing happens it just keeps going on and restarting again which is driving me up the wall, any key i can hold down to boot from cd automaticly or somthing?

ethernet

Patricide wrote:

yea tried in safe mode, and when i put in the windows cd nothing happens it just keeps going on and restarting again which is driving me up the wall, any key i can hold down to boot from cd automaticly or somthing?

You need to go into the BIOS to change the boot order. This usually involves pressing Delete, F2 or some other key when you turn on the PC. Look on the screen for what key to press. Poke around in the menus until you find boot priority. Set is to floppy or USB ZIP/CD-ROM, then CD-ROM or DVD and then hard drive.

Save settings and reboot. You should not be able to boot off the Windows CD. You will be prompted to press any key to boot from the CD.