View Full Version : Desktop refuses to boot
Hi All,
Number 1 sons desktop is refusing to boot. On switch on it displays an error message saying that windows failed to start up properly and that this may be due to recent hardware or software changes. (we haven't changed anything recently) It then offers 3 options, Start windows normally, Enter Bios or enter safe mode none of which work. No matter which option you select it tries to boot and than after a few seconds it flashes very quickly through a blue screen of death (too quickly to be able to read any of the message) and reverts back to the original error screen. It's a fairly old PC and to be honest I may just buy a new one rather than have it repaired. My main question being is it possible to retrieve his extensive music collection from the hard drive before attempting a repair ?
Thanks in advance.
PS Operating system XP SP2
west lakes
28th Apr 2008, 09:34
I had this on mine for a long time, first use system restore in "safe mode" and it may cure it for a while.
The problem seemed to occur every time Norton Av updated.
Having read the notes on the present AV that I got with BB, it seems there can be a conflict set up with firewalls. Make sure there is only one switched on.
Ah just notced the safe mode option fails - makes it worse than mine then, the rest of the sympyoms match though
green granite
28th Apr 2008, 10:23
3 courses of action as I see it if you want to save the music files.
1) Use your xp disc to attempt to repair the existing system, may work ok.
2) Buy a new pc install xp then plug the old hard drive in as a slave and either keep it as a second storage device or copy the files across.
3) Buy a new "el cheepo" hard drive plug it into your existing machine in place of your existing drive, install windows, then proceed as above.
3 courses of action as I see it if you want to save the music files.
1) Use your xp disc to attempt to repair the existing system, may work ok.
2) Buy a new pc install xp then plug the old hard drive in as a slave and either keep it as a second storage device or copy the files across.
3) Buy a new "el cheepo" hard drive plug it into your existing machine in place of your existing drive, install windows, then proceed as above.
1) I cant do item 1 as written as I only have recovery discs
2) Can you explain how to connect the old drive as a slave
3) I cant do 3 for the same reason as item 1 above
Good here innit :ok:
OK, here's the situation as it stands. I have bought a new hard drive and have installed XP Pro from a CD I had in the office. When all was up and running I connected the old hard drive to the CD drive of the PC and when I select 'start' - 'my computer' I can see the old HDD displayed in there as 'D' I can also see that it has 22 of the 80Gb remaining so it would appear that all the old files are in there. I have tried to copy a few of these onto the desktop but I get various errors which wont allow the progs to start. Whilst comparing the 2 HDD's I noticed the new one had been formatted as FAT32 whilst the original is NTFS. I am now attempting to re-format the new HDD as NTFS (using a thorough format not 'quick) but it seems to be hanging at 99%. I have tried 3 times to reformat but each time it has stayed at 99% for nearly 40 minutes. Should I leave it longer or settle for the 'quick' option ? Assuming I can get this problem sorted whats involved in copying old files and apps across from the old drive?
Thanks in advance
cats_five
30th Apr 2008, 13:33
If you are stuck with the new HDD unable to be convered to NTFS and not booting as FAT32, simply re-install XP and tell it to reformat the HDD as NTFS. To be safe, disconnect the old HDD first.
If you still have problems, make sure you are working logged into an account with administrator rights.
If you still have problems, post the errors here, and/or put them verbatim into Google - I've fixed a few problems doing that.
green granite
30th Apr 2008, 14:24
To move the files you should be able to just open windows explorer and drag the folders from the old to the new drive. But NOT any program files as they wont work.
Thanks for that green granite, I thought I was doing something wrong. Todays problem is locating the actual files. Number 1 son assures me they are in a directory called morpheus shared which should be located in 'my documents' I cannot find the 'my documents' directory on the old drive. I have tried the search facility with every combination of morpheus and shared I can think of. It finds morpheus first time but no other directories leading off it. I have also tried searching the old drive for all music files but it only comes up with 200 or so and I know he has thousands on there. Is there a specific file type I could search for ? I have tried *.mp3 but again that only brings up a couple of hundred. Anyone now what the suffix is for morpheus files?
Any and all suggestions welcome. I was also wondering if theres a 3rd party software that we could download the contents of his ipod onto and then load them back onto itunes ?
Thanks in advance
John Marsh
2nd May 2008, 16:36
Whiz:
From the info at http://wiki.morpheus.com/~wiki/wiki/index.php/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Searching
it appears there can be different file types resulting from a morpheus download. No.1 son's equipment will have the software to recognise them .
Idea: note down the titles of some of the 200 or so music files that have been found.
Ask No.1 son if these are items he downloaded with Morpheus. If they are, you've found the place where Morpheus was storing songs. Go back to the search results & hover the mouse cursor over one of the files. The file location should appear. Then, copy that entire folder.
spannersatcx
2nd May 2008, 19:52
My documents folder should be in
D : \documents and settings\
in there there may be several more folders such as administrator, all users and several profiles i.e whiz or no1 son, in there will be a load more folders one of which should be my documents. So it could be like this
D : \documents and settings\no1 son\my documents