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My girlfriend has a laptop running windows XP and when we try to turn the computer on it goes to the start up screen and then won't take us to the desktop screen . I try restarting in safe mode and a couple of other modes but no matter what it won't go past the start up screen. I am pretty much computer illiterate so any help will be much appreciated.

damn, doesnt sound good. probably a virus. your most likely going to have to re-format the computer. you can go into the setup screen (where you select safe-mode) and configure the computer to start the CD drive before anything else. after you do this restart the computer with a Norton anti-virus cd and run a scan. pretty hard to do and i would bring it to a computer place and just pay the fee's. the problem with going to a computer place is that they dont do any memory backup which means you'll lose everything on the computer if they need to re-format it.

This post has been edited by Jdog1385: Aug 22, 2005 - 12:26 PM

Thats what I was afraid of. Thanks for the input jdog.

Find a friend who knows about computers... he may be able to salvage what little you have left, without you paying an arm and a leg. If not, get a bootable windows cd and have it format your hard drive and reinstall windows xp. That's the best computer illiterate way to deal with the problem.

Ed.

Instead of going into safe mode. I believe there is another option when you boot up. Instead of doing anything choose the option that lets you boot into MSDOS, (I think it was like sumthing such as "running commands, or anyway) It should show you a black screen with sumthing like "c:/windows/blah/blahblah" (replace blah with other commands). Now run (without the "" marks) "chkdsk /f c:" and hit the "Y" key. Now restart your machine and let the process work itself out. IF this does not work than toss that piece of crap out the window and get a new one.

XP Home: If you have a boot disk then just run off of it then choose to do a repair when you enter the repair command line screen type in "chkdsk" then "fixmbr" then "exit" and reboot, it takes less than 5 minutes and if that doesn't work you'll need to re-install the OS.

XP Pro: Just choose the repair option at the partition selection screen when you boot off the disk it'll replace the OS without loosing any files.

did you install anything before you start it? a new mouse, usb, etc?
take out anything and try it again.

Send it to me. I do that stuff for a living and I can back everything up to. I'd give you a really good deal, too. I'd most likely reformat though. How old is the comp and what brand?