Computer stops responding with a black screen when you start Windows XP

[Bradley]

I think I've narrowed this problem down to a bad Master
Boot Record. I've booted up off the original Windows XP
cd-rom and selected 'R' to get to the recovery console. I
ran the 'fixmbr' command and it says, Caution: Invalid or
non-stand master boot record. Continue? ' So I continue.
It says new MBR successfully written. Well, didnt fix
booting problem. So I go back into recovery console and
do the same command and it gives same warning. 'Caution:
Invalid or non-standard master boot record. Continue?'.
The command keeps saying it is successful but everytime I
run the command it gives the same warning. Can somebody
explain this to me? Thanks.

P.S. I've hooked up the drive as a slave and all my data
is still in tact. Nothing has been lost. The drive just
will not boot into Windows XP.

 

[Dave]

More than the MBR is broken, try a reinstall (back up the data from the
drive first), you might be able to do a 'repair' install of some kind - I'm
not sure what options you get as I have an OEM disk with their own version
of repair.

 

[Richard Morss]

Went thru same process. Same runaround. Backup data that still exists.
Then try cleaning out bios (remove battery for 30 secs) and reboot. Worked
for me. Never saw this in 20 years (but I'm no expert, either.)

Good luck,
dick