Help with pc that won't boot up

Kashkai

I posted the following in another forum
"I was using Kapersky Internet protection for the past two years but it caused my Dell Dimension 8300 (running XP) to really slow down and freeze up. I removed it yesterday and installed AVG free and also AVG's PC cleaner which took a lot of junk that ccleaner missed off the drive. The results were instantaneous and this 8 year old pc had a new breath of life.

This morning I ran AVG virus removal and it identified 8 potential root kit threats and recommended removal which I did. This caused the pc to crash and I can't get it restarted, even in safe mode.

Is there a way to reboot it so I can do a system restore?"

Everything I've tried has failed, including trying to boot the PC from the Windows XP disc in the CD drive. Is it beyond repair, do I need a new hard drive or should I bring it to a tech for his attention? I'm in north Kildare btw.

Thanks

Saganist

Prosperous Dave wrote: »

I posted the following in another forum
"I was using Kapersky Internet protection for the past two years but it caused my Dell Dimension 8300 (running XP) to really slow down and freeze up. I removed it yesterday and installed AVG free and also AVG's PC cleaner which took a lot of junk that ccleaner missed off the drive. The results were instantaneous and this 8 year old pc had a new breath of life.

This morning I ran AVG virus removal and it identified 8 potential root kit threats and recommended removal which I did. This caused the pc to crash and I can't get it restarted, even in safe mode.

Is there a way to reboot it so I can do a system restore?"

Everything I've tried has failed, including trying to boot the PC from the Windows XP disc in the CD drive. Is it beyond repair, do I need a new hard drive or should I bring it to a tech for his attention? I'm in north Kildare btw.

Thanks

It sounds like your OS is pretty loaded with all sorts of crap that has built up over a the last while. Have you thought about a clean reinstall of Windows or preferably Linux ?

Did you try a USB bootable Linux drive. ?

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

Kashkai

It comes up with the Dell logo, into the Windows XP initial boot phase and then goes to the page that says "there was a problem with Windows the last time you used it. Would you like to start in Safe mode,last known good config, start windows normally" screen. No matter which option I choose, it goes to a blue screen and stops there.

I've searched the web and it mostly says to try a fresh install of XP but even though I've now configured the pc to boot from the CD drive, nothing happens, ie I get "press F1 to retry, press F2 to go to set up screen".

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

Kashkai

Thanks. I might give this a shot but it'll mean losing everything on the pc. I know. Should keep back ups:o

yuloni

This post has been deleted.

Skerries

if you have Windows XP on it and have the original disk you can do a repair to clean up the corruption

or if it's another flavour of windows do a google for a repair

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsystems/ss/instxprepair1.htm

Kashkai

Skerries wrote: »

if you have Windows XP on it and have the original disk you can do a repair to clean up the corruption

or if it's another flavour of windows do a google for a repair

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operatingsystems/ss/instxprepair1.htm

Tried to do that but even though I've configured the pc to boot from the CD drive (which has the XP disc in it), it still won't boot up.

hearny

Ok few things to cover here.

Dont do a reinstall yet as you dont need to lose your files.

The XP cd isn't loading because its not set as the boot drive (even if it was you wouldn't be able to boot up to a working XP with it, it will only boot to the installation setup). On most dell machines the key to display the boot menu is F12. Turn on the pc and when the dell logo is displayed keep tapping F12 and you should get a menu where you can select the CD / DVD drive.

Dont do this yet though as you should recover your files first.

If you have an external hard drive you can connect it to the PC, from another PC download and burn a Linux CD / DVD like Knoppix (http://knoppix.net/) download and burn to a dvd using another machine, boot it the same as above and you should be able to find your files and copy them to the hard drive.

To try and repair the Windows installation you first need to find out what the problem is. Reboot the PC and keep tapping F8 as soon as the bios (Dell Logo) screen disappears, you have to be fast to get into the advanced startup menu.

Select Disable Automatic Restart on System Failure. Now the computer should give you a Blue Screen with an error. Post the error message that you get and I will tell you what to do next.

If you need anything explained better let me know.