my compaq laptop won't go past the windows start up?

Question

it won't go past the windows startup screen

Answer 1

If it gets to windows startup, that means you're POSTing, that's the good news. FIRST unhook all devices except kb and mouse. ALL IN ONE printers are notorious for causing no boot. Next, try to boot up in safe mode or in last known good (most people hit a keystroke combination like f8 and choose). You might have to try VGA mode). If you can boot to windows, then start looking for reasons why it failed. If you get a bluescreen, that will tell you where the problem is so you can fix it. Alot of unintellegent people don't understand that bluescreens are diagnotic tools that help you locate problems. Google the blue screen and it will tell you theproblem. If it gives you a dump, that will even point out the program or process that caused it. For most people the culprets are 2 antivirus at same time, AOL SE or optimized (optimized for THEM not for you) or bad drivers. IF you get into safe mode, go to run, type in msconfig, startup tab, then disable all nonessential items, click apply, then close, then reboot. Reload your drivers, esp video. IF after you can't boot after safe mode or last known good, ask us and we'll help you with a repair or a parallel install, if not os reinstall.

Answer 2

Press F8 while waiting for your machine to boot. Boot into SAFE MODE. Run msconfig from the run box in the start menu. Go to the startup tab. Disable all startup programs. Reboot. If you have no trouble booting after that, you have a bad startup program. Keep going to SAFE MODE restoring one program at a time and rebooting until you find the bad program. Disable that one and boot, then remove it and reinstall it.

Answer 3

I had one like that. It had Windows ME on it. I had to put XP on it to get it to work.