Windows XP wont' boot, unable to access safe mode

[crzjunglej2]

Hey Guys & Gal's...

Great way to start off a Saturday, I'm running Windows XP on a Dell Dimension 8250. Last night everything worked fine, no problems, this morning turn on the computer, get the Dell screen with the loader, after that... blank screen with a blinking cursor.

I tried to access safe mode by hitting "F8" and nothing. If I don't get a keyboard failure I'll just get the blank screen with the blinking cursor.

Haven't loaded anything new, ran a virus scan last night... nothing, spyware scan... nothing. A little confused... and Dell's not helping any either, so I have to go with the people who know!

Any ideas, I greatly appreciate it!

[elroy]

Does that pc usually display a black and white screen at boot up with memory check and a list of drives? If it usually does show this are you getting it now? Can you get into the bios setup? More info please.

[crzjunglej2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by elroy

Does that pc usually display a black and white screen at boot up with memory check and a list of drives? If it usually does show this are you getting it now? Can you get into the bios setup? More info please.

Yo Elroy,
thanks for the quick response, I'm not as computer savey as I would like to be so bare with me... when I boot I don't get the memory check or a list of drives, what I see is a screen with the Dell logo and then a loading bar, usually when the bar loads it takes me to the welcome screen for XP... but now after I the loader finishes all I get is a blank (black) screen with a blinking cursor, I can get into the F2 = Setup and F12 = Boot Menu

would I be able to enter the bios setup from these areas?

thanks for your patience

[crzjunglej2]

Alright, I tried the following things and nothing seemed to work:

- Did a system repair through the Windows XP CD
- Used the CHKDSK /R function, which ran fine
- Ran the Resource CD from Dell which did a diagnostic check, I received one error, Error Code: 1100:012a - I do not have what it stated.
- Ran a diagnostic on the hard drive through the Boot Menu options. Said the hard drive was fine.
- Just for s*** & giggles, tried to re-install XP again, which is wouldn't let me because there was already a version on the drive.

I did not partition my drives, cause I'm stupid like that.

When I talked to Dell, there sending me a new harddrive. All the tests I ran showed the drive, it's compacity, and how much free space was on there. With all of this should I just face the fact that my hard drive is gone (after only being up for 6 months) and move on?

Is there anyway to recover the files on that drive?

[darick]

i'm having the same problem w/ my new pc. I'm assuming it's the harddrive that is causing the problem maybe?

"THe black screen and non responding keyboard" is right after the windows xp screen.

[crzjunglej2]

well, I hate to say it but I just replaced my drive... starting over from scratch!

[Combo75]

Crzjunglej2, sorry to hear about your misfortune. I've got a lot of questions here....perhaps this might help the next person with the same issue.
Did the replacement of the hard drive fix the problem? Were there any issues when you setup the new drive? Did you use the same IDE cable from the old drive or did you use a new one? Did you try to setup your old drive as a slave to export/import your data to the new drive?

If any issues did arrise, that might lead us to know what the original problem was incase it wasn't completely the hard drives error.

Thanks!!

[pawprint]

Quote:

Is there anyway to recover the files on that drive?

If the files are critical, you can set up hdd as a slave to attempt to recover files.

crzjunglej2, you stated that you also attempted a repair install.

Another option is to reinstall windows xp into existing windows folder.
During install, you would choose install without deleting partition.
If files are in folders of the root c drive, then a reinstall would keep these files intact.

Also, did you attempt to reinstall by deleting existing partition?
If your files were located in my documents, they would be lost.

Of course, all these questions are a moot point due to replacing hdd, these are to assist others for future reference.

cheers, ~pawprint~

[arcangel_loki]

is there a way to format a drive without deleting files?

here's the whole situation: My brother dowloaded a version of windows xp pro and a week later it wouldn't work. the only thing that i havn't tried is to reinstall windows because i would have to delete the files on his hard drive (which he does NOT want). he was using an E-Machines T1105 that he got 5 years ago and i have a Dell Dimension 2400. my computer works great but i have no idea how to set up a slave drive. is there a way to take the hard drive right out of his computer and plug it into mine as a slave drive w/out deleting any of his files? I took it out and pugged it into mine by removing my cd-drive and putting his hd into mine, but when i start windows i log in and it does the "windows NT authority" thing where it shuts down in a certain amount of time. do i just need to go into my bios menu and enable slave drive?

[darick]

think there's a program utilizes both software and hardware, called pc 3000 might be able to restore it? I'm trying out HDD Regenerator v1.5 right now on my old Western Digital 120GB, i'll tell you the result. (it causes my comp to freeze and i hear clicking noise)