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Arcstarter

Thu Mar 05 2009, 08:45PM

Registered Member #1225 Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253

My computer has been running very slow. One day, it decided to freeze up too bad to even restart or shut down. That left me with two options, which is to unplug or hold the power button to turn off. I held the power button, and when i turned back on, it would not boot.

It runs windows XP, and it is an Optiplex GX240.

It will finish up the first loading screen, and i can use the keyboard to enter boot setup and all that good stuff. I can also leave it alone and it says there was a boot problem, and i can of course boot it normally, last known good configuration, safe mode, safe mode with networking and safe mode with command prompt.

I was suggested by my brother to reload BIOS. I found a website with a program you can download.

I downloaded the BIOS, and put it on a floppy disk. I popped that into the damaged computer, and pressed F12 on the first loading screen and tried to boot from the diskette. It just gave me the error message saying that there was no system files on the diskette or there was a disk problem. These are brand new disks, so i know they are not the problem.

My computer looks nothing like the example on that website, it is a large desktop computer, and i have had it for around 4 years and it is refurbished. I am not sure what to do with it now, and it has all the files and program files. Also, this computer obviously has a power supply problem, as it randomly turns off.

Any help is appreciated!

Electroholic

Thu Mar 05 2009, 09:34PM

Registered Member #191 Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 02:01AM
Location: Esbjerg Denmark
Posts: 720

XP tends to "rot" by itself, how old is that install? It might be time to backup, deltree everything and start over.

Tom540

Thu Mar 05 2009, 11:14PM

Banned on 3/17/2009.
Registered Member #487 Joined: Sun Jul 09 2006, 01:22AM
Location:
Posts: 617

Dont mess with the bios. its probably you windows install is all gunked up by crap or you have a bad HD sector. Try running check disk from the windows disk or doing a repair through the disk. Might have to format and then reinstall windows.

Arcstarter

Fri Mar 06 2009, 01:45AM

Registered Member #1225 Joined: Sat Jan 12 2008, 01:24AM
Location: Beaumont, Texas, USA
Posts: 2253

I forgot to mention, all of the bad lagging and this was all caused after a registry cleanup and optimization (defragmentation). I know how to do that, as my father works on computers and he is the one who told meh how to :P.

Well, it will just be completely restarted, not going to back anything up or anything like that. Goodbye pics and videos that i never uploaded to youtube :'(.

Conundrum

Fri Mar 06 2009, 07:30PM

Registered Member #96 Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4059

Ghost it to a spare drive as an image then use ghostexp to get the goodies?

-A

Ama

Sun Mar 15 2009, 05:33PM

Registered Member #1852 Joined: Mon Dec 08 2008, 09:54PM
Location:
Posts: 12

Have you tried Windows Repair?(from installing)
Or maybe re installing the windows over the same drive!

Sulaiman

Sun Mar 15 2009, 06:50PM

Registered Member #162 Joined: Mon Feb 13 2006, 10:25AM
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3140

Try safe start and set video mode to 640x480 256 colors and try a reboot.

Steve Conner

Mon Mar 16 2009, 10:48AM

Registered Member #30 Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706

In situations like this, I take the hard drive out and hook it up to one of those external USB 2.0 housings. I use that with another computer to virus scan the drive (in case of autorun trojans, don't let it autoplay when you plug it in!) and then make a copy of the My Documents folder etc. on another drive.

Then I reformat the drive and reinstall Windows, and finally copy the My Documents folder back. Voila one good as new computer, hope the customer has the install CDs for all their applications :D

Backyard Skunkworks

Mon Mar 16 2009, 04:37PM

Registered Member #1262 Joined: Fri Jan 25 2008, 05:22AM
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 451

Steve McConner wrote ...

In situations like this, I take the hard drive out and hook it up to one of those external USB 2.0 housings. I use that with another computer to virus scan the drive (in case of autorun trojans, don't let it autoplay when you plug it in!) and then make a copy of the My Documents folder etc. on another drive.

Then I reformat the drive and reinstall Windows, and finally copy the My Documents folder back. Voila one good as new computer, hope the customer has the install CDs for all their applications :D

Exactly.

If you don't have the CDs for all your programs for some reason, it can pay to make a backup of program files along with the registry files, and if any programs can't reinstall you can manually copy them back to the drive and add their registry entries.

Just don't mess with trying to update the BIOS, the last thing you need is to totally brick the computer, forcing you to either trash it or pay to get the mobo reflashed.

Also, my guess on the floppy is that you didn't "burn" (what do you say for a floppy?) it with the bootable flag set.

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