Pc with windows xp will not start help please

MyRubyRed

Guys hoping someone can help. PC will not boot in safe mode or anything else. Have inserted CD with a view to repairing but I'm now faced with a C prompt and don't know what to do next. Have trawled through help pages on web using laptop but I can't find any instructions on what to do. Can you help please

bluemoonbob

Can you get to the bios screen?
if so try setting the boot order to the cd/dvd drive first as it sounds that your hard drive is trying to boot first with a corrupt MBT (its the file that tells the pc where to look for what)
Once you have set the boot options so that the cd/dvd drive is the first option save changes put your xp disk in and try to reboot.
Hope that helps
Good Luck

Jaffa.

Do you have any important data on the drive? As it would be much easer to start over again with a fresh install of Windows XP.

Here is a 'how to' on the Recovery Console:

When you are prompted, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.

At the command prompt, type the appropriate commands to diagnose and repair your Windows XP installation.

For a list of commands that are available in Recovery Console, type recovery console commands or help at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

For information about a specific command, type help commandname at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

To exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type exit at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.

Jaffa.

bluemoonbob wrote: »

it sounds that your hard drive is trying to boot first with a corrupt MBT (its the file that tells the pc where to look for what)

You mean MBR? (Master boot record)

And the command to repair that is fdisk /mbr (theres a space between fdisk and /mbr)

bluemoonbob

Damn who put the t and r so close together on my keyboard:rotfl:

MyRubyRed

I'm sitting at the moment in the repair console I think and there is just a C prompt. Ive entered fdisk /mbr and response is command not recognised??. Mostly have photos and music on pc and email, few files but not much. Scared to reinstall in case I mess up e-mail

MyRubyRed

Hve come out and accessed bios screen. Display states 1st boot set to cd 2nd to floppy and third to hard drive. Daughter also panciking as she apparently has UNI course work on system. Prefer not to lose any other ideas guys?

robredz

If laptop has cd writer in it , download Puppy Linux http://www.puppylinux.org/ burn to a cd, boot from cd mount the windows drive from the puppy desktop, and move the UNI course work onto a usb stick, likewise the other stuff, then you can reinstall windows, instructions on puppy are on the website.
Otherwise
When you are at the C:\ prompt from the XP CD type / help and a list of commands available should come up, look for FIXMBR, check out this:

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/termsf/p/fixmbr.htm

MyRubyRed

Aplogies for not responding. I sorted it using the CD that came with the PC and utilising the repair console. Did not lose a thing. Thanks to all who responded. Ive clicked the button in relation to each xx

macman

Might be time to now do a back up then-before it happens again. Which it will.