Windows XP/CPU Help!!!

[BigDPW]

Got home today and realized there had been a power outage. Usually my desktop does fine in that situation but not today?

When it tries to boot it will load a screen saying that it was shutdown wrong and asks whether to start in:

Safe Mode
Safe mode with command prompt
Safe mode with Networking

Last known settings that worked

Start regularly


None of these options actually work however system just goes to the windows xp screen and cycles back to the same screen...

The desktop is about 5 years old but has surprisingly been working fine without any problems until recently. Still worked fine but prior to todays problem the internet had been slow to boot in IE and I thought we might have been affected by some malware or a virus. All of the things I ran to check that stuff each identified some small stuff and took care of it but no improvement in performance. I don't know if that has anything to do with this current problem or if it is simply a red herring?

Any ideas about what to do. I am computer literate for most stuff but troubleshooting boot issues and windows is a bit out of my comfort zone.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Also I have a big presentation coming up that I needed to work on tonight but looks like that might not be doable...

Thanks!!!!

[k0ruptr]

All of the things I ran to check that stuff each identified some small stuff and took care of it


Did these things delete any files or anything? It is possible some system files got moved or deleted.

[k0ruptr]

After you get this fixed, I would stop using IE btw. just safer to use firefox or chrome or opera, or basically anything else.

[BigDPW]

Did these things delete any files or anything? It is possible some system files got moved or deleted.


No not that was apparent to me. Just seemed to quarantine a few things. Didn't delete anything but cookies, etc that I am aware of.

[ozias]

Place your Windows XP disk in the CD/DVD drive, and then just have it "Repair" Windows.

It sounds like something in the Master Boot Record may have been screwed up.

Repairing won't make you lose anything on the drive, so you don't need to worry about that.

If after repairing, and your system still doesn't work, you may need to just do a full install, which would remove all data from your drive.

[BigDPW]

Place your Windows XP disk in the CD/DVD drive, and then just have it "Repair" Windows.

It sounds like something in the Master Boot Record may have been screwed up.

Repairing won't make you lose anything on the drive, so you don't need to worry about that.

If after repairing, and your system still doesn't work, you may need to just do a full install, which would remove all data from your drive.

Unfortunately the option to repair is not there when I boot from disk and enter Windows XP setup. Also the amount of disk space available on my primary hard drive equals the size of the drive? That can't be good right? (assuming I am reading it right?)

Seems a bit odd?

I found this link that is walking me through some things to try but beyond this I am lost? How to Perform a Windows XP Repair Install (http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm#warning2)

[BigDPW]

I do have an external hard drive that backs up all of our data too. I don't think that will help me in this situation other than being able to recover my data if the HD is shot right?

[BigDPW]

Okay so when I am at the XP Setup screen to look and see if I can repair the drive it is not an option. Also the 150K MB size is listed as entirely free???

I have called puget systems support and I am running some diagnostics they recommended and we checked the bios settings all of which seem to be okay so far?

Any other thoughts?

[weegeebored]

Keeping it simple, I would boot to the Recovery Console from the XP cd. You'll be prompted for the Administrator password so hopefully you know what it is. Then I would run Chkdsk. Could be that some of your system files are messed up.

If that doesn't fix the problem you could try FixMBR through the recovery console although I'm not that confident that this is your problem.

I do like the idea of doing a Repair as ozias suggested. You need to boot from the XP cd and then go to setup. It should detect that you have a copy of XP already installed and you should be asked if you want to repair it. Obviously choose that option. If you don't have that option (as you have said) then Windows setup doesn't think that Windows is already installed and that's an issue. But if that's the case perhaps one of my above suggestions will fix that.