Help!! Pleeease....

[missyjax]

Hi guys. I found your site by googling. I hope I'm asking this in the right place.

I'm near Dallas and we had storms last night. My PC was turned off but not unplugged. This morning, it took me like 3 tries to get my Windows XP to load. Then I decided to test the shut-down process and it did not shut down properly. So I turned it off and tried turning back on.

This time I got a DOS type screen telling me Windows wasn't loading and it gave me several options, with "use normal settings" highlighted. It also had safe mode and use yesterday's settings. While I was reading it, it just launched under use normal settings and it did obviously work.

But something is wrong. Is there anything I can do myself to fix this? Thanks so much for any responses!

 

[Megabite]

My guess it got a power surge.........first inline is the power supply and after that the Motherboard

You could try taking out the Cmos battery on the motherboard for awhile and then putting it back in and testing.

 

[Elvandil]

It could be as simple as file system errors.

Go to Start > Run, and type:

chkdsk /r

Answer "Y" and reboot to let the disk check run.

 

[missyjax]

Ok thanks I'll try that! But one quick question - is this something that could have been caused by the power issue?

I'm asking just because I do think the early morning storm and this new issue are connected - it was instantaneous.

 

[Elvandil]

Yes, definitely. Storms, lightning, and "sympathetic discharges" can cause a large number of strange and unpredictable things. Most damage I have incurred from storms has been through the phone line and not the electrical outlet. If you are around, it's really beat to disconnect the wires. At least, both your power and phone should have good surge protection. The storms don't even need to be nearby or visible to you.

Power companies routinely have power surges in their lines even under normal circumstances, sometimes as high as 800 volts. So surge protection is a good thing to have even in the absence of storms and your equipment will last longer. During a power outage, collapsing magnetic fields can also cause instantaneous surges even though the power has been disconnected.

 

[Mojolookout]

Hi missyjax,
pc's are not as susceptible to lightning as tvs. but a power surge can burn ics within the mobo very easily. your cmos battery might've also got done in. although if you have a UPS running you shouldn't have any problems from a power surge.

to check if your cmos is working, go to your BIOS by pressing 'del' or 'f12' while staring your computer. check to see if the date and time are correct, if your PC's time was correct before and it isn't now, you can be pretty sure its your cmos.

 

[missyjax]

Wow, you guys are awesome. I'm starting to feel like I'm a lot of trouble. Elvandil, here's what I got.

The type of the file system is NTFS. Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system starts? <Y/N>

I did hit Y but I just want to be sure this is the right message.

Mojo...on the date - I can do that but if the date/time on my bottom toolbar is still ok, that isn't proof enough?

I guess if this DOS message is ok, I just just check the bios when I reboot. Ugh...this is scaring me!

 

[Elvandil]

Wow, you guys are awesome. I'm starting to feel like I'm a lot of trouble. Elvandil, here's what I got.

The type of the file system is NTFS. Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system starts? <Y/N>

I did hit Y but I just want to be sure this is the right message.

Mojo...on the date - I can do that but if the date/time on my bottom toolbar is still ok, that isn't proof enough?

I guess if this DOS message is ok, I just just check the bios when I reboot. Ugh...this is scaring me!

Yes, that's the right message. Chkdsk can't fix the drive while it is being used, so it will check on next boot.

As far as the BIOS goes, you probably don't need to check it if your system time (down in the tray) is still right.

 

[Mojolookout]

thats true, i just thought it would be quicker than booting to windows.

 

[Elvandil]

thats true, i just thought it would be quicker than booting to windows.

Yes, it really depends where you are when you start.

 

[missyjax]

Thank you so much guys. I'm going to leave it on for awhile and get some work done but I'll test this later today and I promise I'll report back, even if it's successful! I've bookmarked this place and yes, I uploaded my bookmarks

I really do appreciate it.

Oh and Mojo-I copied your f12 command because if and when I get this fixed, I have another reason to use it.

 

[missyjax]

Hello again! I just now got the guts to turn it off and run chckdsk. I think everything is fine. I didn't have time to read through the result of chkdsk before it disappeared but I assume if they found something it would have been highlighted somehow. (There was nothing indicated during the check itself).

So thanks again for all your help!