Computer Troubles?

Question

Hi i was wondering if anyone could tell me or could think that might be wrong with my computer. When i go to turn on the computer it goes straight to a windows things saying the program was interrupted and that its got a countdown time on it from where it says windows will start but my computer freezes when it hits zero. And i have a red light where the restart button is but the light turn on and off. And casuses my computer to act this way. when i first turn on the comp i usually here a beep and i tried putting in the boot disk and the boot thing doesn't come up and goes straight to windows but i had a look at the hard drive and now i still get the thing that says windows has been interupted due to power failer or unexpected restarts cause thats what the computer was doing before this problem my brother says the hard drive could have viruses as it makes a noise that sounds like a lawn mower or some sort. if anyone who can understand me can give me advice. thanx

Answer 1

1. I'm going to take a stab at this, I think the red light is your 'harddrive activity light', meaning when the harddrive is running the light is on, and blinks from barely on, to almost a bright red to show how much, or how little the harddrive is 'running'. So don't fret about this!
2. It sounds like the computer is missing some files in it's operating system, and the harddrive is running overtime trying to find them. Harddrives generally have from six to eight 'arms' inside, going back and forth over three to four disks, at hundreds of times a second. 100's of TIMES a SECOND!! Bound to make a little noise!
3. Go to the BIOS screen ,(Basic Input/Output System),when the computer first starts, press F1, or the DELETE key. If one doesn't work, try the other one, you won't mess anything up. When the BIOS screen comes up, go to Peripherals,( or you might find a tab at the top that says, 'Boot Options"), go down the screen until you see Boot Options in Peripherals, or under the Boot Options tab, Boot Order, and press Enter. Use the + or - key to scroll down or up,(or the page down, or page up key), for each boot option. List the cd-rom first, the floppy next, and then the harddrive. Exit the menu by pressing ESC until you're back to the main screen, F10, press y, and the Enter key. Press the CTRL key, the ALT key, and the DELETE key AT THE SAME TIME to make the computer re-boot. Put the Restore disk in the cd/dvd drive. The computer should now boot from cd. It will ask you. "Boot from CD?" Press Enter. Or it may just boot automatically from CD.
4. If this still doesn't work, immediately upon starting the computer up press F8, keep it held down until it beeps at you, this should take you to a screen that asks if you want to boot in Normal Mode,or From the Last Known Good Configuration,or Safe mode with Dos prompt, etc. Take the arrow up key, and go to SAFE MODE. Press Enter. It'll ask you yes, or no whether you want to be in safe mode. Yes! It'll look way different, don't freak out! Go to Start, Control Panel, see if you can get to System Restore from the Performance and Maintenance tab. Set a restore point by clicking with your mouse cursor, to a date well back before you started having problems.
5. No? Okay with the Boot up option set to boot from CD listed first, put a good anti-virus utility disk in the cd drive, and start the computer up, see if the anti-virus software will load and do it's thing.
6.See, if somehow the Reset button is stuck by physically unplugging the wire form the button inside the computer, to the motherboard,(draw a little picture/map where this goes so you can re-install it if this not the problem,(with the computer off, and UNPLUGGED!), I've had this happen, and it'll drive you crazy! Also the power button,.... it trys to re-start the computer, over and over.
7. If all this fails buy a harddrive from Wal-mart, 80Gig, and install it. Have somebody install Windows, or buy a copy and install it yourself!

Answer 2

Your hard drive is about to die on you. Better install a new one and just use the old one as slave drive so you could still recover important files.