Help needed with start-up

the182guy

SurreySue wrote: »

Received ERD Commader (Thanks Paul T) and also another reboot cd but although I can get the screen that lets me choose to boot from CD, the computer just carries on round in the original loop...
Is all hope lost if I don't have the XP pro discs?
Would a repair shop be able to load where I cannot?

Any replies would be appreciated as I'd prefer to know when to quit!

Many thanks for your time & thoughts!

Normally it says something like "press any key to boot from CD.....", if you don't press a key it will boot normally from the hard drive and have the same problem.

Are you pressing a key to activate the boot from CD?

SurreySue

Hello

On initial boot I press F11 to get the boot menu with heading 'Select First Boot Device' - this gives me 4 choices:

Floppy
USB cdrom (this is the one I use)
IDE-0
CD/DVD

choices are only [up/down] to select; [return] boot; [Esc] cancel

so I scroll to USB CDROM and hit return without joy! - more of the same!

the182guy

So you have an external USB CDROM then? Or is it built into the tower?

SurreySue

I have an external cd-rom drive, as the computer cd/dvd drive packed up a while ago (well, it refuses to open!) and it was a good way round the problem. Also it meant that I could use it on my netbook too.

the182guy

Ok what disc have you got? What CD are you using, did you burn it yourself? It could be that the CD hasn't been burned with bootable mode on, or it could be the system not reading from the USB CDROM. Do you have another computer to try and boot the CD with? This will help by ruling out the possibility of a bad CD.

Yes the computer shop should be able to repair your XP installation and retain all data unless of course any hardware is failing/faulty such as the hard drive or RAM.

This is like deja-vu for me because I recently fixed a family members computer that had the same stop codes, and their CDROM was also faulty.

SurreySue

Ventured into the tower and removed the old cd drive replacing it with another one.
Ran the ERD Commander boot disc, set up a system restore point and can 'see' my files under it's version of 'my computer' but cannot open them.

Am not allowed to run winternals crash analyser wizard as the licence has expired and a new one is required.

What do I do now as if I remove the disc and reboot I go back to square one.

Paul_T_3

Hi Sue,
If you use ERD and try to restore to an earlier date, what happens after it restarts ? Does the computer show the options you originally stated ie just gives options for starting in safe mode , with networking etc or does Windows start normally with the ERD disk removed ?

Paul

the182guy

If the problem is still occuring after removing the CD then you'll need to get hold of a Windows XP CD to run the repair utility on it. Your product key may be printed on a label on the actual tower somewhere. Be sure to get the correct version for your installation, e.g. XP Home or XP Professional. Otherwise it's looking like taking it to the computer shop who should be able to repair the installation providing it's not hardware fault.

SurreySue

Hi Paul

It goes back to the original options of safe mode etc.
Is it worth trying a different (earlier) restore point?

Paul_T_3

Sounds like a good idea to try an earlier restore point. All your docs and files should still be there but you may have to reload any program updates that have happened since the restore point. Try going back a couple of weeks

Good luck

Paul