The Computer is REALLY broken!

[Guest]

My mums PC has had a major melt down of some sort and I was hoping someone
could help.
It started by telling us that there were corrupt files (Sorry don't know
what they were), this stopped and the computer continued to work. Following
this it began to slow down during start up. At one stage a message 'Your
computer has recovered from a fatal error' was displayed and this was due to
an "ATI Graphics" (Or monitor, we can't remember). The computer then froze
and could only be turned off with a push of the restart button. Now the
computer does turn on but it takes about an hour just to get to the desk top.
Then there is an error message about Norton which can not be rectified
because the computer is so slow. Everying takes literally hours to complete.

To cut a long story short, does anyone think the problem can be fixed and if
not can our files be saved?
Thanks
Danielle

 

[Earl Grey]

Time to show the computer to a professional. Do it now before things get
worse.

Earl Grey

 

[Guest]

Before you wipe Hard drive get hold os an IDE to USB cable and power pack -
about £6 from e-buyer. If you can get hold of a laptop ar another PC - take
the corrupt drive out of your PC use the cable to connect drive to laptop -
power up drive with power source if laptop has XP then it will read the
drive like a USB pen. Then you can lift all important files to laptop before
reformatting drive and reinstalling windows. I know this works because I have
just done it with my PC

Nnelg

 

[Jamie Benson]

Danielle,
Have you perhaps tried booting into safe mode? You can do this by
pressing F8 when the PC is first turned on. Just keep pressing it and
you should receive a list of options and you should select the one for
safe mode. Try that and see if it takes as long. Let me know if it
does and we can try and go from there.

Jami Benson

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My mums PC has had a major melt down of some sort and I was hoping
someone could help.
It started by telling us that there were corrupt files (Sorry don't
know what they were), this stopped and the computer continued to
work. Following this it began to slow down during start up. At one
stage a message 'Your computer has recovered from a fatal error' was
displayed and this was due to an "ATI Graphics" (Or monitor, we can't
remember). The computer then froze and could only be turned off with
a push of the restart button. Now the computer does turn on but it
takes about an hour just to get to the desk top. Then there is an
error message about Norton which can not be rectified because the
computer is so slow. Everying takes literally hours to complete.

To cut a long story short, does anyone think the problem can be fixed
and if not can our files be saved?

Danielle, I can't answer your question because you've provided almost no
information to help us. You don't know what the corrupt files were, you
can't remember whether the fatal error was from ATI graphics or the monitor,
and you got some undefined error message about Norton.

This is like asking the doctor "I'm sick. Can you cure me, or will I die?)
He can't answer that question without more information or an examination and
neither can we.

However, if the computer runs at all, your files can be saved by copying
them to external media.

 

[Guest]

Thank all for your help! Will take it to the doctor because it is running
too slow to be able to get any info out of it. Been 10hrs and still waiting
for the C drive to open to copy files.
Ta Again
Danielle