Windows XP Home won't load

[Guest]

I get the screen that gives me the option to open at the last good startup,
safe mode, etc. I've tried all methods. The blue bar scrolls across, stops,
and then the Windows screen freezes on the monitor. It had started rebooting
itself before this happened and was in the process of booting itself back up
when it first did this.

The bad news is that I never made a recovery disk for it and of course
Windows came preinstalled with no disk available.

I have files that need to come off of there. Any help is GREATLY
appreciated. (I do have another compter with Windows XP Home that I have just
made a recovery disk for and that is networked to that computer some. I don't
have shared files, but the printers and modem are networked.)

 

[BigJim]

if your computer is a dell or hp it may have the OS on a hidden partition.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I get the screen that gives me the option to open at the last good startup,
safe mode, etc. I've tried all methods. The blue bar scrolls across,
stops,
and then the Windows screen freezes on the monitor. It had started
rebooting
itself before this happened and was in the process of booting itself back
up
when it first did this.

The bad news is that I never made a recovery disk for it and of course
Windows came preinstalled with no disk available.

I have files that need to come off of there. Any help is GREATLY
appreciated. (I do have another compter with Windows XP Home that I have
just
made a recovery disk for and that is networked to that computer some. I
don't
have shared files, but the printers and modem are networked.)

If you have another system, you're in good shape. You just need a USB
drive case or adapter. These can be around $20.

Remove the drive from the problem machine, attach it to the adapter, plug
that into your system.

Once that's done, XP will detect and mount the drive, and you can just copy
the files you need. At worst, you will need to take ownership of the
folders.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

Once you have the drive attached, you'll have your data in just a few
minutes.

While it's attached to the other system, look in the root folder for the
swap and hibernation files. Delete them, and empty the wastebasket. I've
found that that sometimes (not always) that is all that's needed to get
systems to boot past problems like this. Those files will be rebuilt.

HTH
-pk

 

[Rock]

I get the screen that gives me the option to open at the last good startup,
safe mode, etc. I've tried all methods. The blue bar scrolls across,
stops,
and then the Windows screen freezes on the monitor. It had started
rebooting
itself before this happened and was in the process of booting itself back
up
when it first did this.

The bad news is that I never made a recovery disk for it and of course
Windows came preinstalled with no disk available.

I have files that need to come off of there. Any help is GREATLY
appreciated. (I do have another compter with Windows XP Home that I have
just
made a recovery disk for and that is networked to that computer some. I
don't
have shared files, but the printers and modem are networked.)

You didn't make a recovery CD, and you don't backup files? Do you think you
might now change the way you do things?

Here are some options to recovery your data:

1. Take the drive out of the computer and install it as a slave drive in
another Windows XP or 2000 computer. It should read the drive ok, so you can
copy the data. A variation of this is to put the drive in an external drive
enclosure and connect that to the other computer.

2. Create a bootable Bart's PE disk, boot from that, then copy the data to
external USB drive or flash drive.

3. Download a bootable Linux distro called Knoppix. Create a bootable CD
from that, boot from it, and copy the data to USB drive or flash drive, or
if the computer has two CD drives, one of which is a burner, then use the
k3b burning program on the Knoppix CD to burn the data to CD.

4. Take it to a competent computer tech to backup the data.

To restore the OS, check the documentation that came with the computer or
with the computer's tech support to see if there is a hidden partition on
the drive with an image of the drive as received from the factory.
Otherwise order a recovery CD from the computer manufacturer, and if they
don't offer it, you can try a generic XP OEM installation CD and use the
product key on the sticker attached to the computer case. Last option is to
buy a copy of XP.

 

[Guest]

Glad to hear that it seems all hope is not lost. I'll try the suggestions
posted. I at least want to get all the files I can off the old HP if it is in
its death throes. (It's a 2001 or so model, after all.)

 

[Rock]

Glad to hear that it seems all hope is not lost. I'll try the suggestions
posted. I at least want to get all the files I can off the old HP if it is
in
its death throes. (It's a 2001 or so model, after all.)

<snip>

Ok good luck.