Major start-up trouble

[Cherie Bennett]

My mother-in-law's computer is on the blink. She can't access the start
menu. Can't click on it, or use the keyboard's start button. She can't
open up any desktop icons and, when the computer boots up, the time is
correctly shown, but it freezes up. Never changes.

She did say that the computer was running very slowly a few days prior
to all these problems. She has run Norton to check for any viruses, and
also ran SpyBot. They both came back clean. Her last resort was to
re-format, but that didn't fix the problem.

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance

Cherie

 

[Richard Urban]

Did your MIL install any new hardware?

The fact that she did a format/install (which completely wipes out whatever
was on the drive previously) would indicate, to me, that there is a hardware
issue - possibly with something new that has been installed.

Please find out if she did, in fact, format the drive that contained her old
operating system. She may have performed a "repair install" without
realizing it. This can leave remnants of a prior problem/condition, and you
may be not much better off than you were before you reinstalled.

Reinstall = installing on top of what is already there, in the hope that a
problem/condition can be corrected.

Format/install = Totally wiping out what was previously there so that there
is absolutely no chance that a previous condition will survive (unless there
is a hardware problem).

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!