Problems Starting Up
 

My friend’s computer is on the blink. When she switched on yesterday, she was presented with a black screen, with white writing. The message reads something to the effect:

We apologise for the inconvenience, but Windows did not open properly. Recent hardware/ software changes may have caused this. (She hasn’t had any recent changes.)If this was caused by a power failure, choose “Start Windows Normally”

Then there is a choice between

Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt
Last Known Good Configuration

She’s tried them all, gets, briefly, the Windows XP start-up screen, then very briefly, a blue screen with writing, then back to where she started!

Over the phone, I had her switch on the computer in safe mode, but apparently it went back to the black/ white screen that she had already experienced.

Sounds bad. Anyone got any thoughts?

Assuming she has the CD, then try using the Recovery Console command prompt, (you can run it from the CD without installing it) For the "how to" guide go to and print off: How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP

It is probably a corrupt driver, given how far it seems to get in the boot process - unfortunately, it seems to be a critical driver. This may indicate a problem with the hard disk.

Booting from the installation CD and attempting a repair is one (remote) possibility, but realistically, there are 2 things to be done - either a clean install on a new hard disk (keeping the old one with the data as a second or external disk), or attempting a re-install / repair in-situ.

With the latter, you can boot off the install CD, then select install, then choose repair existing (not recovery console). It should (that much over-worked word), overwrite corrupt files and result in a usable system, with user accounts, data and applications left intact. There's a good write-up here, but google "XP repair install" or Repair existing XP and you'll find more.

Whatever you do, try to take a backup before you begin - connect the disk in another PC, or in an external caddy. At least then if anything goes wrong, you have a recovery.

Just because the disk isn't currently bootable doesn't mean the data is inaccessible.

SD

Just an update, it turns out that the computer was switched off at the mains prematurely, as it was in the process of shutting down. Our mutual (guru) friend came round with his kit, took out the hard drive, attached it to his computer, ran Scandisk in dos, reinserted the hard drive, and all was well again!

Thanks for the replies.