Member Avatar for McDaddy17

Hi Guys

My PC has recently refused to boot up to windows XP.

It reads a message saying "Press CTRL + ALT + DELETE to restart", when I do this it loads up with exactly the same message and I end up going round in circles!

Someone advised me to load my product recovery disc so that I boot from that and hit R for the recovery console, then type in fixboot which should solve the problem.

However, when I put in the CD, it starts to load and a message comes up saying "Setup is searching your hardware configuration" then the screen is completely black and nothing happens, so after 30 mins I tried again and again but I can't seem to get to the recovery console to try the fixboot method.

Any ideas how I can get to the recovery console? Or any other ideas how I can get my PC to boot to windows please?

I apologise but I am not technically minded and I would hate to have to reload windows as I would lose quite a bit of data and it took me a little while to successfully set up my wireless network at home.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by sittas87
Member Avatar for HoustonIT

You should be able to find a bootable fdisk cd iso on the net that will allow you to fix your mbr.

Member Avatar for abu taher

1. try again.
2. check your all hardware connection.
3. If you have no problem use bootable disk for boot from ms dos. format your windows drive. then try again to setup. remember, before formatting drive back up you essential documents.
then no solve please reply.

Member Avatar for OlyComputers

If I had to guess I'd say a shot HDD. Go into your Bios and see if your Hard drive shows up, make sure it's set to be the boot device. If it doesn't show up then check the cable connections, try swapping the cable from your CD to your HDD to test for a bad connection, and if those steps don't make the system recognize the drive you're probably working with a defective or failed hard drive.

Member Avatar for c-tech

most probably the HDD is dying. but before giving up on it you should check to see whether the cables are connected well and that they don't become loose at some times.

Member Avatar for sittas87

Hi
Is there any other message that gets displayed when the "ctrl+Alt- delete get displayed? In most common cases a massage will be displayed like:
Cannot find a bootable device
Press ctrl+Alt Delete to restart.

My certain guess is its HW related. I too think its the HD thats righter being detected or Kapoot.

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