Crash--won't let me reload

[katydid0317]

Tonight my computer crashed. I went ahead and started to repair or reinstall my windows XP professional, but it locked up during that process and gave me the dreaded blue screen. I didn't write down what the screen said, just went to restart the computer. Now, the computer will not boot whatsoever. I went ahead for my last resort, and brought out the setup disks. I was going to just start from scratch and reinstall my system, but it won't work. I put the setup floppy in the drive, and the computer starts to read the disk. Then, it just stops. I waited and waited, and tried it all again. I grabbed a different floppy disk thinking it might be actual disk, but that doesn't work either. Anyone have any clue what could be causing the problems? Would a damaged floppy A drive cause these or similar problems? I would like to just repair and reinstall, but I can't get to that point. I had a problem with my floppy drive a month or so ago, (an excel spreadsheet was corrupted and I wasn't ever able to reopen it). Help. I don't want to spend money on a new computer if it could just be a little problem. Does anyone have any suggestions?

 

[DaDeOh]

Hi Katy,
I've found that most times the dreaded BSOD (blue screen of death) is hardware related, most times (for me it has been memory related)either bad chips or conflicts with other devices. I guess you have tried to start the pc in safe mode.In XP hold down "Control-Shift-Escape' while rebooting for the safe mode prompt.If it boots in safe mode the likely causes is a driver conflict.VXD's(virtual device drivers)are good for BSOD's. I would check the BIOS you can get to that by pressing either the F1 F2 F10 or Del key as you boot your machine depending on your brand of machine look for a listing that is highlighted or has a asterik next to it that means that setting has changed or failed .You can reset the motherboard to factory defaults,And clear the CMOS you can do that with a jumper located on the mother board or just take out the little battery that looks like a nickle for about 60 seconds, Then if possible try some different mem chips then I might try the drives, most times a bad floppy just dosent work it wont give a BSOD.You most often get a message saying "cant read from drive A:\ abort retry fail Etc. You should also be able to boot straight from the Windows CD-Rom It would help to know a little more about your PC brand and model# or motherboard and BIOS type "award/pheonix" etc. I'll check back soon.
DaDeOh =)

 

[katydid0317]

I can't even get into Windows at all right now. When I try to boot the computer up, it freezes before loading Windows. That is why I just brought out my setup floppy disks and went to just reinstall Windows, but it won't work. The floppy starts to read the disk, but stops when it would normally bring up the reinstallation menu. I tried getting the computer to boot using safe mode, but it won't work. I just get a blank black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left corner. This is a fairly older computer, and have had issues before when my brother caused me to get a virus and crash, but that was well over a year ago. I haven't had any really bad recent issues other than my floppy drive acting funny. I am worried that maybe this system might be beyond repair.

 

[micker377]

Download and run a DOS based antivirus program.

 

[katydid0317]

I would love to do that, but it won't run DOS. I tried.

 

[Moonspell]

hmm, methinks you have a problem. You will need to start pulling components one at a time. if you have more than one stick of memory then try pulling one at a time and see if pc will boot. Also check all your cables. this does not sound like a virus as you have tried to boot from a floppy and got nowhere..... if it's not memory or cables then you will need to dig deeper - video card/mobo etc

 

[micker377]

Did you turn off the partition anti-virus in BIOS setup? To run DOS, you have to boot with a Win 98 EBD, and go from there.

 

[jgregoire]

hey katy,

did u ever figure out the solution to that problem? My laptop is doing the exact same thing, and I have tried everything you did and to no avail, does anybody have a word of advice? I mean my machine is a vaio, complete crash and trying reinstalling anything has been pointless.