Computer won't boot up -help please

baywood_2

I am a technophobe really and my old desktop pc will not boot. I was using it last night for usual just surfing that i usually do. This morning went to start it up and it will not boot, it sounds like it is trying to start up and then stops again, sometimes i get a black screen which gives me options of how to restart windows and have tried all of these and it does nothing other than try to start again . It is quite old running vista xp but had a new seagate 80 gb hard drive put in in november 2009. If i could get it temp running to get loads of music off which my son was just about to put on a portable hard drive then that would be great. Any help is much appreciated.

fwor

There are several things it could be, but hard disk failure is likely, even though less than 2 years old.

Easiest thing to do is to get a bootable CD (e.g. a Windows install CD, or any of the Ubuntu-like Linux LiveCDs, which you can download for free), and try to boot the PC from that.

If that works, you should be able to plug in a pendrive or USB hard disk and transfer files onto that.

Be aware that you may need to make a minor change in the BIOS to make it boot first from a CD rather than the hard disk.

baywood_2

Have managed to get someone to try to help, and we cannot get it to boot at all so looks like everything is lost , he thinks that the hard drive is completely gone, and cannot even get it to boot from a disc.

fwor

baywood wrote: »

and cannot even get it to boot from a disc.

The PC should be able to boot from a CD even with a completely dead hard disk (or indeed a completely absent hard disk). You probably need to enter the BIOS setup (often entered by hitting F2 or DEL immediately after powering it on) and change the boot order. If you don't, it just tries the HDD and then gives up.

baywood_2

i have asked him and he says he has tried to do that but apparently it wouldn't let him get into the bios. he is not an expert but willing to have a punt to try and get it going but he is struggling

codheadling

what is the make and model of the tower, and is it running vista or xp

baywood_2

it is evesham tower not sure what model but running xp , had new harddrive seagate 80gb november 2009

baywood_2

bought second hand from ebay

OneADay

baywood wrote: »

i have asked him and he says he has tried to do that but apparently it wouldn't let him get into the bios. he is not an expert but willing to have a punt to try and get it going but he is struggling

What does he mean it won't let him get into the bios?
Try pressing DEL, F2 or F12 when you switch it on.

baywood_2

it is strange because sometimes when it is trying to do something it seems to stop and then try again and repeats the same process and if we manage to get to try to boot from cd drive it says boot failure. it is going out the window soon

codheadling

start with the pc powered off,turn it on and keep tapping the Del key straight away to enter the bios