Newbie in Need of Help !!

[BaseLine9]

Could you possibly find out the name and make of your motherboard? Alternately was your computer from a manufacture like say Dell or something? Post the details of that - i will be able to find out from there what hardware you’re using.

My idea is to research and find a way to get into safe mode on your machine, and then at least you can get your work back.

I think it’s safe to say to get windows back working again your going to have to install a fresh copy.

To recap; unfortunately one cannot use CD ROMs in safe mode, does your machine have more than one hard drive in?
E.g. in Windows Explorer (Exclude all removable storage i.e.: CD, DVD and any image drives) you will have a C: drive, then perhaps a D: E: or F: that’s not removable
Basically somewhere else you can save work to? Place all work on this extra drive - when you re-install windows, XP will only need to format the partition C: the rest of the drives will be left alone.

It’s a fairly long shot but if we can start your machine in safe mode were laughing, and there are more gifted pc minds here than mine that may well yet come up with some more ideas

Cheers

 

[Smirkelpus]

Specs & Numbers I found

I openned the machine after finding the instructions book to do it. Not to hard. Blew out the dust so I coult see. On the Mother board -- I found the following numbers
large bold face type: P 48266-L A
small sticker ; DO G 210355 00583 MBL320 A03 0 0
larger sticker: S/N PR 128534 65

The computer is a Hewlett-Packard Multimedia Computer System
model 700 system number P6399A

I don't think there is more than 1 partition set up on my hard drive I only have a C:\ outside of the removables.



Does this help?

Catherine

 

[BaseLine9]

Ok, apologies for the late reply - started to reply last night at home then got picked up to go to a barbecue! All last minute stuff as usual! Lol

It’s going to be difficult to back up your work logging on to windows in safe mode without an extra hard drive and/or partition

I did some research into it and you could use an USB external hard drive (USB does works in safe mode, but its not very stable)

Finally you could slave in another hard drive, providing it has been previously formatted to "basic disk" as XP home only seems to read this type of format, however this needs a change or hardware; something i would rather not try to explain on here due to liability etc... And the very very remote chance of things going wrong.

Its a tough call am afraid, perhaps there is a local "friendly" computer shop that might be able to help you? Explain you need to log on safe mode and extract your data via a hard drive then re-install windows.
There are data recovery houses you can look into - expensive option, that’s more for corporate business and huge chunks of information.

Really sorry i can not be of more help, as Itsme says its would be ideal if one of us had the PC in front of us

 

[Smirkelpus]

I want to thank all of you for your help and patience with me. I am ordering a recovery cd from HP and when it gets here I'll see. I wish the initial set up of the computer would have led me to make the disk that the manual says I should have made. I never knew to do this and now it is too late and I have to order it. BTW -- how was the BBQ? Sound better than my dinner last night. I had egg rolls, fries and a salad. The 12 year old cooked. Blessings to you all when the disk comes in I let you know how it turned out.

 

[Smirkelpus]

I have a quote on my wall because I am a teacher that says " It is better to build a child than repair an adult" I thought it was ironic because it can be said now " It is better to build a recovery CD than try and repair a computer with out it"
hehehe

 

[Cache-man]

Hey Smirkelpus. Welcome to PC-Review.
I hope everything works out well for you.