What has my niece done?

angelcake

no I have tried this and tried it and tried it!! nothing happens!! alt ctrl and delete doesn't work.....nothings does!! it comes up with a black screen and white writing saying safe mode


sorry you are too quick....this means I tried f8

angelcake

so juno ....shall I try this when I start the computer and just hold down F11.....whats supposed to happen!! sorry to be dumb but I really wanna sort it for her

albertross_2

If you have the same PC, you could take her disk out, put it in your PC, and boot. If it works, then she has a hardware problem, if it doesn't then it is probably a hard disk corruption.

(remove the power at the mains, take cover off, pull the two connectors off the hard disk, reverse procedure to fit.)

Don't walk about the carpet with the disk in your hands, as it could get damaged with static.

juno

angelcake wrote:

so juno ....shall I try this when I start the computer and just hold down F11.....whats supposed to happen!! sorry to be dumb but I really wanna sort it for her

If you do that, then press and hold F11 as soon as you press the on button. After a while, you'll get a black screen with "starting recovery process" at the bottom. Then you'll get a blue screen, and it should be quite simple to follow the steps.

THIS WILL ERASE ALL DATA ON THE HARD DRIVE
That means music, pictures, word documents etc are lost forever (or unless you pay lots to get them resued)

Try an ATX reset first. Unplug everything from the computer, then hold down the power button for 20 secs. You won't see anything happen though. Then, plug just the monitor and power back in, and see if it turns on.

amcluesent

>No, the click is probably from the monitor.<

So why are problems with disks called the 'click of death' and problems with monitors, err, aren't?

angelcake

what does the hard drive looklike? I have never opened a computer before!!

startrekker

Have a read of this from Microsofts website the link is HERE

angelcake

Hi....me again!!

I have been trying different stuff today and it is the monitor that clicks, The computer was given to my sister by my mums friend. I tried a recovery program but it won't let me as it needs administrator password and the preowner can't remember it!! Is there anything I can do and is there hope because it is the monitor that clicks!

oh and the computer has only been there a week so it doesn't matter what we wipe!! nothing decent on there, ...although we obviously want windows to work!

scheming_gypsy

Sounds like there could be a problem with the video card rather than the monitor and it's sending a signal to the monitor which is putting it into standby mode.
Could be that the frequency has been changed but that shouldn't affect safe mode.


i had to reset an admin password a bit back cos i couldn't be bothered doing a full rebuild. Got a tool off the net for about a tenner and it worked perfectly.. just trying to find the site

scheming_gypsy

http://www.loginrecovery.com/

this was the one i used.