Catastrophic Windows Xp Failure

[syd barrett]

I have Windows XP home edition, when I boot up my PC it goes through the motions, icons appear but all is dead. It is frozen solid, if I press start, the pop up menus open, then lock, can't shut down: have to pull the power. I have tried everything I know a hundred times over.

Any ideas what I should do? I have heard that Windows XP has a system restore or repair where it mends itself?

Also I have a 3 inch floppy boot disc for this computer I made two years ago. But I don't even know what to do with this. I pressed F8 on start up and booted from this floppy in the A but it does something then asks me to type something.What?

Any help appreciated. This is a major headache, as I guess you can all imagine.

[rainman]

Looks like you could have a memory issue. How much memory do you have? Or something is running in the background that's chewing up your CPU/Memory.

[francois]

hi'

my 2 cts here ...

it looks like your MBR(master boot record) fails to start, canbe hardware, but in this case you would have had some "bips" from the MB(motherboard).

so, if he MBR is corrupted, you need to fix it.

when boot, press F8 and enter safe mode with command line and at the command prompt, type : fixboot + enter and answer yes to all and reboot.

might be just this ...

hope it helps a bit

francois

[francois]

and if it doen't work, set your bios to boot from cd and reinstall windows.

don't press "r" at the first screen, but "r" when ask for setup at the second screen, and let do ..

don't forget to update your windows when done, all updates are gone.

francois

[syd barrett]

Thanks for advice, more specifically: I have a boot disc for XP on 3 inch floppy (A) so how can this help me restore my XP machine?

I don't have an XP CD disc, it was preloaded in the UK.

Thanks in advance..........

[Buff-horns]

could be a million and one things causing it.

tell us more info . is it running too hot ? how much memory ?what cpu ?

cooling ok? bios problems ? just try different things to isolate what it could be .

best to take it to one of the repairers at pantip plaza top floor.

as they have parts they can swap out.

they will fix it in a jiffy .

[syd barrett]

Thanks for help so far: Here is an update;

I restarted in safe mode and then went to system tools and restored from a month earlier, when no problems. However, no change, the system is dead.

For example if I double click an icon no response and program is not responding, end now. Basically no windows stuff works, when I open a menu it all locks up.

It is a 2.8 MHz with 256 RAM and 40G Hard (which has 30 available)

Are there any more DIY fixes I can do from the F8 menu?

Thanks again.

[gamb00ler]

Thanks for help so far: Here is an update;

I restarted in safe mode and then went to system tools and restored from a month earlier, when no problems. However, no change, the system is dead.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If you can run in safe mode....to me that implys that it is a software configuration problem. Perhaps some driver or system service is corrupted. Without an install CD it may be difficult to repair unless the manufacturer copied the install files onto your hard drive.

Look around while running in safe mode

and

a couple of steps to elimanate most non-essential programs from starting at boot time: (re-boot after performing these steps!)

Run msconfig and in the startup page, disable everything. (Start --> Run and type msconfig and press Enter).

Through the Start button, go to Programs... then right click on the Startup entry and select Rename...change its name to MyStartup.

Remember to reverse these changes if you find and fix your problem.

G'luck,

gamb00ler

[NedKelly]

It might also help to say what type/brand your computer is......some have similar glitches and past experience could help from another punter.

I had similar symptoms on my laptop but cleared it eventually (temporarily) so I thought..... with some virus clean ups. However, later on it turned out to be a hardware thing to do with the touch pad !!