Hi, when I switch on my pc I briefly get an American Megatrends page but before I have time to read it it's gone. I end up with a page that apologises for Windows not starting successfully. There are a number of options on this page including safe mode but none of them are accessible as the USB keyboard/mouse won't allow me to navigate to them. 'Start Windows Normally' is highlighted and a 30 second clock counts down to zero and a few moments later I end up back there again, and again ad infinitum. I've tried getting into safe mode using F8 but again the keyboard won't allow for navigation to the desired choice. I can get into BIOS where the keyboard works fine. I've tried inserting my Windows installation disc into the two bootable drives to attempt a repair but neither one boots up. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for your reply. The good news is that my keyboard is now working thanks to you pointing me in the right direction but the bad news is that choosing the Last Known Good Configuration didn't do the trick. It appeared that Windows was going to load up but then I ended up back on the same screen with the 30 second countdown again.
Yes, it is pretty old. I tried the Disable automatic restart on system failure option which has taken me to a screen with a blue background which is telling me that a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. This is followed by some more information about restarting the computer saying that if this screen reappears then I should disable or uninstall any anti-virus etc. Not sure how I'm meant to do that when I can't get that far. Then there's some technical information:
*** STOP: 0x00000024 (0x001902FE, 0xF7A4D6D4, 0xF7A4D3D0, 0xF74BBF73)
*** Ntfs.sys - Address F74BBF73 base at F746E000, DateStamp 48025be5
Is that the Windows XP disc that came with that desktop, and is it an original disc or a copied disc?
What version of Windows XP(Home Edition, Professional, Media Center Edition) is in that disc, and does it contain any of the service packs(SP1, SP2, SP3)?
If both of those disc drives are working, and one of them is set first in the boot order in the BIOS, and that's a legal bootable Windows XP disc, you should be able to boot from it to do a reinstall or repair.
With that desktop as old as it is, a failing hard drive is very possible.
Yes it is the Windows XP disc that came with the desktop and it is an original disc. It's Windows XP Home Edition Version 2002. I believe that SP1 is included.
Yes it is first in the order. It did seem for a short time that the disc was going to work for a repair but as soon as I pressed 'r' for recovery console it has taken me back to the blue screen containing the information I mentioned earlier.
Your disc is Windows XP Home Edition SP1 and you have Windows XP Home Edition SP3 installed, correct?
If I'm correct, doing a repair with a Windows XP SP1 disc in a computer running Windows XP SP3 is going to cause you to do a lot of upgrading and installing afterwards, if the repair is successful.
You might want to read here and see what you're up against.
Personally, I think you should retire that desktop to "computer heaven".
Yes SP3 is installed. To be honest it wouldn't break my heart to consign it to computer heaven. The problem is that I have quite a lot of files on there that I hadn't backed up (bad mistake I know). Do you know of any way of retrieving them?
You're not the first person here who has failed to back up their personal data, and then decided to do it AFTER their computer has "crashed and burned".
I don't have any expertise in doing that, so someone else will need to advise you.
If the drives are good and you have access to a working computer, getting files (not programs unfortunately) from them is pretty straight forward.
You buy an IDE/SATA to USB cable with power.
example:
You attach the drive to one of the connectors, and the other end goes to a USB port on the working computer. Boot up the working computer, then power on the hd removed from the sick computer. You should be able to use Windows Explorer to find your files and copy them to the healthy computer. Never move; always copy. Why? Because if there is any kind of hiccup during a move, the file is gone. If there is a hiccup during a copy, the file still remains on the sick hard drive and you get other chances to get it copied to the healthy computer.
I replaced the hard drive with one from another machine that was working fine. I still got the BSOD though. I'm guessing this means that the problem is hardware related?
You previously asked if I had ever replaced the CMOS battery. I did actually have one or two problems with the computer's date and time a couple of weeks ago but then it seemed alright after that. You obviously think that might be a good place to start in finding a solution to my problem?
Changing an old battery always seems like a good idea. It resets the BIOS to defaults and keeps the correct date and time, once it is set.
A wrong time and date can cause problems.
All's well that ends well I guess. The ide/sata to usb cable did the trick. Not quite in the way I was expecting though. When I connected the problematic hard drive to my working laptop a message popped up on the screen that there was a problem with the hard drive and it asked if I wanted to scan and repair it. So I said yes and then put it back in the original machine. The start windows normally screen came up once again. I selected the last known good configuration option and I'm up and running once again. One thing that I don't understand though is when I connected the hard drive to my laptop I could only see the C drive. I thought I would also be able to see the drive containing all the files that I was looking to retrieve, but not so. Why might that be the case?
I was lucky not to lose a lot of files due to my pc going wrong and not having backed up for a long time. It's so easy to think I'll back up later and then all of a sudden your computer won't come on. So to anybody reading this please back up on a regular basis; you won't regret it but you might regret not doing it! Thanks to all those who took the time to offer advice.
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