Trouble booting up!!
Discussion
Hi, Im having trouble booting up on my uni computer... it asks me to input a boot device or if I leave it off for a little while and flick it on, it'll let me go into safe mode. From safe mode I can system resore to a few weeks before hand (when the computer was last working fine.) This just about allows me to start the bloody thing up, but im afraid of turning it off agian to go through all the faffing about of getting it running.
Sometimes when getting it to start up (unsuccessfully) it flashes up a blue screen with silver/ white writing for a split second. Also, when the problem first started, I put my windows XP Pro disk in and tried to run it, but with no luck as it got to a point where it said it couldnt find a hard drive
!!!!!
Must say, this isnt dis-similar to a problem I had a few months back (again when I hadnt started it for a while) that was sorted by re-installing a driver of some sort (cant remember, will try to find the thread.)
any ideas?? Im clueless!!
Thanks in advance,
BCA
>> Edited by BCA on Friday 21st April 20:39
Sometimes when getting it to start up (unsuccessfully) it flashes up a blue screen with silver/ white writing for a split second. Also, when the problem first started, I put my windows XP Pro disk in and tried to run it, but with no luck as it got to a point where it said it couldnt find a hard drive
!!!!! Must say, this isnt dis-similar to a problem I had a few months back (again when I hadnt started it for a while) that was sorted by re-installing a driver of some sort (cant remember, will try to find the thread.)
any ideas?? Im clueless!!
Thanks in advance,
BCA
>> Edited by BCA on Friday 21st April 20:39
Dont say that
Its only a few months old! (bought in November)
edit: its fine being left on (just loud when im trying to get some sleep) and also, it has re-booted fine earlier (to update something) but I dont want to risk turning it off while I have uni work to do.
>> Edited by BCA on Saturday 22 April 14:03
Its only a few months old! (bought in November)
edit: its fine being left on (just loud when im trying to get some sleep) and also, it has re-booted fine earlier (to update something) but I dont want to risk turning it off while I have uni work to do.
>> Edited by BCA on Saturday 22 April 14:03
pAntscat said:
Sounds to me like you've got a dying hard drive... If you can get it to boot I'd copy anything you'll need on to a USB disk.
Oh... might be worth checking that the cables are in the back of the hard disk properly - but only after you've copied the stuff you want to keep!
I'm afraid I'd have to agree with that being the most likely diagnosis.
Your PC is asking you to input a boot device because it is unable to recognise your hard disk as being bootable. This is probably because the disk is failing, so back it up a.s.a.p. If you can't boot from it, put it in another PC as a secondary drive and copy your data off that way.
There is a slight chance you could just have a virus, but I really think that's quite unlikely.
Best of luck.
roadie.
roadsweeper said:
This is probably because the disk is failing, so back it up a.s.a.p.
... but don't make the mistake of thinking that you'll just 'freshen up' your existing backup, if you have one. Assume that what's on the disc is garbage until proved otherwise - your last backup is the only copy of your data that you can rely on so avoid overwriting the backup at all costs.
If you don't have a backup then I assume that you have nothing of any value on the PC so you might as well just chuck the disc and start again.
BCA said:
Why then does everything work fine once its up and running...?
Im on it now and all is good.
Perhaps because the motor in the drive(s) is shot and the inital power on is warming it up/unsticking it.
Go in to the BIOS and if it's a reltativley recent machine it should have S.M.A.R.T mentioned somewhere in the options. Turn it on, save and reboot.
I'd advise replacing the drive or at least testing the machine with another HDD. However if SMART complains backup pronto.
from here.If it's running XP, check the event log. If the disk is dying it'll be chucking errors all over the place. Easy to spot, they've got DISK written on them and the text mentions bad blocks. If there aren't any then do an XP auto repair. Bung hte CD in and boot the computer, go through as if you were installing XP fresh. Don't press R the first time (recovery console). Chose the partition and then it'll whinge about there already being a windows installation, NOW press R. It'll look like it's installing XP, but it's just replacing the system files and keeping the config.
agent006 said:
If it's running XP, check the event log. If the disk is dying it'll be chucking errors all over the place. Easy to spot, they've got DISK written on them and the text mentions bad blocks. If there aren't any then do an XP auto repair. Bung hte CD in and boot the computer, go through as if you were installing XP fresh. Don't press R the first time (recovery console). Chose the partition and then it'll whinge about there already being a windows installation, NOW press R. It'll look like it's installing XP, but it's just replacing the system files and keeping the config.
Thanks all once more,
Agent;
To clarify: when it comes to most things in life (computers in particular) im an absolute
idiot!! 
Can you explain the above, as you would a six year old child please? It is running XP Pro fwiw. Something seems odd here, the only way I could get it to restart properly was to run it in safe mode and do a system restore to a few weeks ago - why would that enable the hard drive to work properly???
1: Put CD in
2: Restart
3: When it says "Press any key to install..", erm, well, press a key
4: Watch while XP setup faffs about for a while
5: It'll give you some options along the lines of:
- Recovery console - R
- Install - Enter
- Exit - F3
6: Press Enter
7: It'll faff about a bit more then ask you which disk to install to, i assume you'll only have one
8: It'll then faff about yet more and then whinge about there already being an XP install
9: Press R to do the automated system recovery thing
10: Find something to do for a few hours
2: Restart
3: When it says "Press any key to install..", erm, well, press a key
4: Watch while XP setup faffs about for a while
5: It'll give you some options along the lines of:
- Recovery console - R
- Install - Enter
- Exit - F3
6: Press Enter
7: It'll faff about a bit more then ask you which disk to install to, i assume you'll only have one
8: It'll then faff about yet more and then whinge about there already being an XP install
9: Press R to do the automated system recovery thing
10: Find something to do for a few hours
agent006 said:
1: Put CD in
2: Restart
3: When it says "Press any key to install..", erm, well, press a key
4: Watch while XP setup faffs about for a while
5: It'll give you some options along the lines of:
- Recovery console - R
- Install - Enter
- Exit - F3
6: Press Enter
7: It'll faff about a bit more then ask you which disk to install to, i assume you'll only have one
8: It'll then faff about yet more and then whinge about there already being an XP install
9: Press R to do the automated system recovery thing
10: Find something to do for a few hours
Tried this twice before and it didnt go past stage 7 saying it couldnt find the hard drive.
Im backing up my work now, but I have about 40gigs worth of vids I dont want to lose (Car vids/ scrubs/ lost etc etc) Im hoping it'll hold out till monday night when my friend gets back here (who has just bought a 250gig hard drive that im hoping to use.) Then I'll call up the place that sold me the computer and get it sent off.
BAH
BAH
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