What happened and what can I do? My computer crashed. Now when I try to start it I am offered several?

Question

start-up options including safe mode, start normally and go back to most recent configuration that worked. No matter which one I choose the computer acts like it's going to start and then shuts down immediately. Anybody know what's going on? BTW I am using a different computer to write this.

Answer 1

BEFORE REFORMATTING TRY THIS:

Place your Windows Installtion disk in your cd drive and boot from the CD. Instead of doing a reinstall, just do a "repair". It's possible some your .dll files are corrupted and repair will fix this.

It might be a sign your hard drive is going bad. If you can get into the command prompt, run "chkdisk". It's a good idea to do this after a repair if you cannot before the repair.

http://www.bootdisk.com has some good boot disk you can download and make. You just boot form these disks and run the disk utilities to check and fix problems.

Answer 2

If you have an XP installation disk, try the following:

Put your XP disk into your CD drive and restart your system. This will start the XP installation process. When you come to the screen that asks if you want to install XP or if you would like to “Repair” XP, choose Repair. This will open the repair console command prompt. At the prompt, type: chkdsk /r. (There is a space between the k and the /. Now hit “Enter”. The repair should now start. Allow it to run until it stops. This can take some time, so be patient.

If all goes well, XP will replace any and all missing operating system files.

Answer 3

If even your safe mode is not working then there could be a couple of issues.

Bad OS, Bad Motherboard, Bad HD, over heating.

Check to make sure your fans are working. If so, Try reloading the OS and see if that works. If not then you may have a bad HardDrive and that would mean you need to replace it. You could also have a bad motherboard if this is not booting up but you would have to do a process of elimination. I would first start with Fans and check for overheating, then check to see if you can reload the OS, if that still is not working then replace HD and then if all of this still fails it has to be a bad motherboard.

Answer 4

you are going to have to reformat your computer. just stick in your windows cd and follow the directions. unfortunately you will lose all your files, programs etc. but there is no way for you to copy them since you can't even login to windows. you can try taking it to a computer store - they might be able to recover your files before they reformat. good luck!