HELP WINDOWS XP home ed. IS NOT RUNNING, NOT EVEN IN SAFE MODE, LAPTOP WENT WACKO,!!

[lizprlady]

Hi All,

I do not know what happened to the computer/Windows XP Home edition. I used the computer on the night of October 21, 2007, to see a video Diney sent to plan a vacation. Yesterday October 22, when I got home from work I turned on the computer and the computer went wacko, windows does not run, the computer constantly reboots. I tried going into safe mode, and still reboots, tried safe mode with comkmand and the same thing. I am afraid I have to use the recovery cd's that came with computer, hope not!!. I have really important information in my documents that I do not want to lose as well as pictures. Is there a way to be able to save all that information somehow and not lose it with recovery, if it all ends in having to do the recovery thing. I will show below the screens I am getting. HELP!

The first picture shows the screen that I get when I turn on the computer.This screens lasts for about 1 1/2 minutes, takes a lot of time to go from this screen to the screen on the second picture.

The second shows the screen that I get before the computer reboots automatically, that screen lasts for about 30 seconds.

Specs

Aspire 5002WLCi
(1MB L2 Cache, 1.6 GHz)

60 GB HDD

DVD/CD-RW combo

512 DDR

802/11 b/g wireless lan

In BIOS

PhoenixBios

CPU type AMD turion ™ 64 Mobile Technology
CPU Speed 1600 MHz
Manufacturer: Acer
Product Name Aspire 5000

System memory: 640 KB
Extended Memory : 446MB
Video Memory : 64MB
Quiet boot ( Enabled)
Power on display (Auto)
Network boot (Enabled)
F12 boot menu (Disabled)
D2D Recovery ( Enabled)

[Suspishio]

You can get your data off by putting HDD into an external enclosure with USB and taking it off onto another PC.

System memory: 640 KB
Extended Memory : 446MB

... looks a bit strange. I haven't seen or rather noticed a 640KB message for donkey's years. I'll check that out, may be a red herring.

[Suspishio]

Seems like the Phoenix BIOS does put out this quaint display. I thought it meant that you'd booted into "Direct" (X86) mode, but apparently not.

So, get your data off as I've described and then do a system repair from your windows CD or reconstruct windows.

I wouldn't faff around with this.

[lizprlady]

Thank you for replying :-) . So what you are saying is I need to remove the Har drive from laptop and connected to another computer with a USB, so I can save my data?

and then use the Recovery CD that the computer brought when I purchased it 2 years ago??

What do you think happened to the computer to go wacko the way it did?

[Suspishio]

basically yes - that's what I'm saying. A lot of people can tell a lot of things it MIGHT be, but there are few types of fix for something that's constantly rebooting when it always worked before.
1/
I would get into the BIOS (F2 key or F1 or whatever the BIOS displays) and turn network booting off. At the same time, put CD booting at the top of the list for future effort but then don't have a CD in unless you want to boot from it. The see what happens with netwpork booting off.

2/
If the above doesn't work, then prolly something has got corrupted and needs to be restored. If you have a Windows install CD, then you can boot from that and repair Windows - sometimes, depends what is actually wrong. It's a 50/50 shot.

3/
If you have a restore CD/DVD, just check with the instructions that came with the PC that there isn't a repair option or disk with your package. If not, then the quickest way out of your mess is to get the system restored and your software re-installed AFTER you've backed up your data.

My advice is based on "what would I have done?". It's a big responsibility to suggest that you trash your HDD and restore it and I know you're dreading it.

Maybe there are other braineos who can miraculously suggest differently; all the ones who can't are the ones who have read your plea for help but haven't replied!

PS: Sleepie time now. Goodnight.