can anyone help with this computer problem?

[Punch]

Firstly happy new year to everyone!

We had visitors for Christmas who seem to have left my daughter's computer not functioning. The problem is as follows;

The computer just won't boot up, and keeps recycling over and over in the following mode; It shows a black screen with a message in French saying windows cannot start correctly,possibly due to a new logiciel or material ( we have added nothing new at all).

Then it gives options to choose by the up and down arrows to boot up/ start either in safe mode, normal mode, and a couple of other choices. I have tried all the choices and the computer always reverts back to the original black screen, with a countdown of 30 secounds before it tries again. This just goes on and on.

I do know that the visitors we had were on MSN chatting to some uk friends, but they assure me nothing strange happened whilst online. I have anti Virus Mcaffe which was up to date, as was windows update.

I seem to remember a friend having this problem a couple of years ago which was caused by a virus?

So can anyone help me get this thing working again please? My daughter is back to college tomorrow and desperately needs to access her PC files

Many thanks in advance,

Paul

[Gyn_Paul]

Paul,

Did you buy this PC with its OS pre-loaded or did you load it up from

disk? If the latter, then do you have Win start-up discs which you can

boot from? (I'm assuming it is some version of Windows?) sounds like

the registery and/or ini files have been corrupted, and you need to

reload the OS.

One of those options (on some versions at least,) allows you to load

the drivers one by one, by confirming (Y/N). It  might be possible

to find the culprit that way.

Sorry I can't offer a quick fix.

paul

[chenauds]

Try     www.windowsbbs.com who have always sorted out any problems I've had quickly and effectively.

[Jonzjob]

Hi Paul, are you by any chance on Wanadoo Livebox? If so try to boot up with it disconnected.....

I had the same problem, out of the blue it would start to boot and got as far as the first XP Pro boot up window. I contacted McAfee who said that I would have to uninstall their programmes. This I did, in 'Safe mode' and I disconnected the livebox so as not to leave the PC completely open. It booted up fine. So then I reloaded McAfee, reconnected the Livebox and guess what, the same blasted thing. I am not sure at this stage what made me disconnect the Livebox, but I did and all was OK. So I then went through a load of hoops with Wanadoo (helpline based in Tunis! Very helpful, but limited English). After about 4 calls and a couple of different proceedures I was given a reference number and told to present it to France Telecom in Carcassonne and we now have a brand-new Livebox. There are known problems with this box.

Luckly enough I had gone from an ADSL 'modem' to the Livebox so I had the 'modem to connect and prove that the line was OK, otherwise that would have been another couple of daze delay.

I hope that this will help.

John.

[Punch]

Paul - unfortunately the OS was pre-loaded. I did make some recovery CD's as instructed when I set it up but have had no luck at all in getting it running as before, as the PC has had several upgrades and alterations since they were made.

Chenauds - Thank for the BBS link. I've registered there so may find some time to post a few questions to resolve it .

John - I disconnected the livebox, but still the same problem. This is a third PC that I have connected to my livebox by ethernet, the other two are connected by USB cable, and wifi dongle.

Since the problem, I have re-loaded a copy of windows XP, but seem to have lost all my old files . When I boot the PC up now, I get two choices on a dark screen - either the new windows XP, or the old version which is the original which packed up. If I chooose the old version, the machine just cycles through the boot up problem in my original post.

Incidentally, once I had installed the new windows XP OS, I thought I would try to get online to update windows, Mcafee etc etc, so I re-installed the livebox software to add another PC, but there now seems to be a problem whereby the PC cannot now see the livebox - it says the IP adress of the PC does not match the Livebox - arrrrgggh! I phoned wanadoo assistance (anyone who has ever done this will know how frustrating that can be), and the guy seemed to think the ethernet 'carte reseau' or network card was at fault - how would I know this? I don't want to replace that for no reason.

Anyone brave enough to help?

 

 

 

[Markradland]

This might seem odd but it is posible that you have left a floppy disc in the drive.

Regards

Mark

[Jonzjob]

Hi again Paul, have you got any PCs that will operate through the live box? Do any work on a USB cable? And how many PCs are you using htrough the Livebox?

John.

[Jonzjob]

Hi again Paul, have you got any PCs that will operate through the live box? Do any work on a USB cable? And how many PCs are you using through the Livebox? Also what lights do you have on the livebox?

John.

[Shane]

Don't know whether you are fixed or not, but we had exactly the same problem before xmas.

We are on ADSL via a Live box and all of a sudden the pc "hung" and we had to do control, alt, delete and then it would not restart.

Fortunately we knew a computer wiz who managed to get in in safe mode, copy all my files, then he had to wipe the whole thing and reload. Its been perfect ever since.

He suggests it may have been a "glitch" through the ADSL line, power surge or something. There was no virus, no corruption, nothing to find anywhere. Very very strange.

We are very nervous now and I back up everything I do on to CD that is important etc, and we invested in a lap top just in case it happens again.

Sorry can't offer a solution but if you know  a man who can............

Good luck

Carol

[Punch]

[quote user="Dordognecarol"]

Don't know whether you are fixed or not, but we had exactly the same problem before xmas.

We are on ADSL via a Live box and all of a sudden the pc "hung" and we had to do control, alt, delete and then it would not restart.

Fortunately we knew a computer wiz who managed to get in in safe mode, copy all my files, then he had to wipe the whole thing and reload. Its been perfect ever since.

He suggests it may have been a "glitch" through the ADSL line, power surge or something. There was no virus, no corruption, nothing to find anywhere. Very very strange.

We are very nervous now and I back up everything I do on to CD that is important etc, and we invested in a lap top just in case it happens again.

Sorry can't offer a solution but if you know  a man who can............

Good luck

Carol

[/quote]

Mark - Nope no disks left in machine!

I've just fixed one of the problems in that I am now getting the machine to see the livebox and connect to the internet. The problem was the network card had gone doodally so I just thought I would try a new card and,  bingo!

John - I now have my three machines all back on line - one via Wifi , one via ethernet cable and a third via USB cable.

I think Carol's post goes a long way to explain why the original problem occured. We had quite a few power cuts/surges over the festive period and I feel this was probably what caused everything, and probably damaged the network card. Incidentally, I have re-installed mcafee and done a full scan which has found no viruses.

The main problem I have now is to try and get the old version of windows up and running to recover my old files. If anyone has any ideas, please share.

Thanks for everyones help, By the way my daughter say's thanks too for at least getting the Pc back on line!

Paul

 

 

 

[Gyn_Paul]

Punch, (having 'paul' at either end of a message is doing my head in!)

Why do you need the old OS running to retrieve the files? if you drill

backwards [WINDOWS KEY/My Computer/Disk Drives] to the c: drive, surely

everything will still be there won't it?

paul

[Punch]

[quote user="Gyn_Paul"]Punch, (having 'paul' at either end of a message is doing my head in!)

Why do you need the old OS running to retrieve the files? if you drill backwards [WINDOWS KEY/My Computer/Disk Drives] to the c: drive, surely everything will still be there won't it?

paul
[/quote]

I'll sign off as Punch from now on - makes life easier [:)]

Paul, thanks for that - actually it was so obvious I didn't see it!! The new version of windows that I installed went on D drive so I managed to recover everything and get the old version running after a few hours of playing around last night!

Now all I have left is one small problem; When the PC boots up, I get a black screen with the choice of the old versions of windows XP family edition OR windows XP home edition (which is the one I have now deleted) If I choose neither, the latter one tries to boot after a countdown timer, but as I have deleted this version, the PC obviously can't find it. So you have to down arrow to choose the correct version each time the PC boots now - not practical for my nine year old.

Is there anyway I can just get the PC to boot up with the Family version without giving me the choice?  I expect there is some adjustment that I need to make in a start/boot file, so if anyone can answer this it will be much appreciated.

Punch.

 

[Gyn_Paul]

Punch,

Are the different OS's on different drives?

If so it's a simple matter of going into the bios and changing the order that it looks at the drives to boot up.

Good luck (I'm off back to the freezing barn to continue the exciting CH installation!).

 p

[PS - where's your avitar gone?]

[Sevenup]

[quote user="Gyn_Paul"]Punch,
Are the different OS's on different drives?

If so it's a simple matter of going into the bios and changing the order that it looks at the drives to boot up.

Good luck (I'm off back to the freezing barn to continue the exciting CH installation!).

 p

[PS - where's your avitar gone?]

[/quote]

Punch

It's not quite that simple and you will have to edit a file.

There is a small file called Boot.ini that sits in your first drive C:\. The black screen that you see comes from whatever is in this file and it will look something like this. I have changed it to possibly look a bit like yours.

[boot loader]
timeout=30   
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Drive C Windows XP home edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Drive D Windows XP Family edition" /fastdetect

In order to edit it you will need to make it visible and also remove the read only attributes. Do that from windows explorer. I would advise making a copy of Boot.ini before you start editing anything. Call it Boot.ini.orig

The bits you need to change are on the default line. Go to the third bracketed zero (0) and change the 0 to a 1. This will now ensure that you default will start the new operating system on drive D.

Save this change and then reboot to check that it works.

If all OK then you can make another couple of changes to make everything normal again.

Edit the Boot.ini again and change the timeout value form 30 to 0. This will make the black screen disapear at startup.

I hope this helps.

[Sevenup]

Punch

I do appologize for jumping in with my solution as I thought it would be right for your setup. I was not aware that changing the drive sequence in BIOS could acheive the resolution to your problem. Oh well I hope you try that first before editing BOOT.INI.

 

 

 

[Gyn_Paul]

Sevenup,

You're probably right: if the two versions are on the same drive, then BIOS changes won't help and he will have to go mining in the ini file, I was just hoping to save him from that pain !

Am I right in thinking that the second installation will have written

it in the ini file as something like 'windows XP etc '  and

'windows XP etc [1] ' and that it should be just a matter or swopping

the order over?

p

I tend to backup any vital file I'm rewriting with a saved version with

a false suffix (e.g. 'ini'  changed to 'imi', or 'exe' to eze')

then when it all goes pear-shaped it's easy to find (or to search) the

file, and rename it back again quickly.

p

[Sevenup]

Paul / Punch

I had forgotten that Windows has a built in tool for making changes to BOOT.INI. Just do the following.

Goto Control Panel / System / Advanced / Startup Recovery and make the changes there.

There is a dropdown list to choose your new entry and your old deleted entry. You can also change the timeout value to 0.