start up / boot problem, unexpected restart

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Guest

I'm having trouble with starting up my computer. Recently it began to just
stop while it was starting up. It would sometimes do this on the BIOS
screen, sometimes while the microsoft logo was up, but usually once it got to
the usual desktop. It just entirely stops responding, the mouse won't move
and the light that indicates hard drive asscesses stop blinking/lighting up
at all. If it gets to the desktop it will either lock up like this in the
first three or four minutes or not at all. It has been taking 4 or 5 tries
to get it up and running. Last night, after it had been running for a while
and a few programs were up, it turned itself off (screen went black with no
usual shut down), and then restarted and gave options of starting in safe
mode, last working configiration, etc. I chose last working configuration
and it booted up, but after a little while windows stoped responding (mouse
would move, but I couldn't do anything). When I tried to start it again it
did the usual locking up just after the desktop came up. I also noticed that
when this started happening instead of having to chose a user profile on the
welcome screen (there was only one) it just said welcome and kept going on
its own. I have windows xp pro, and I also somewhat recently installed
service pack 2, but I'm not sure how closely that lined up with the problem
starting. Any suggestions?
 
Boot to xp setup CD, and press 'r' to enter the Recovery Console prompt. Run
the command

CHKDSK /R
 
Thanks for the advise. I did what you said and it got to 53% and then said
"The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems." and then
quit. Am I correct in assuming this means my hard drive is pretty much dead
and I'll need a new one or are there other possiblities?
 
Nothing else is likely to fix it either. I have seen people freeze a drive
to make it start one last time.
 
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