System recovery - PC wont start up

[ga8625]

When shutting down updates were scheduled to run which takes a while but when
it wasnt shutting down, a dialog box said something not responding so I
pushed "end now" w/o paying too much attention to what it was. The screen
"froze" -cursor still moved but nothing happened for a long time so I
unplugged and pulled out battery to power off.
When powering on, prior to the typical system restore screen, a black sceen
said (in part) no bootable CD in ATAPI drive - press F10 to
recover system.
Then the system restore screen comes on a few seconds later saying windows
didnt start successfully, to start in safe mode, if... or last known good
configuration... or start normally. No matter what option you select the PC
looks like its working, goes to Windows logo screen then loops back to black
screens - repeating loop over and over and over again. Pushing power button
turns off PC. HELP!!!

 

[sgopus]

Did you leave a CD in the cd drive?
ATAPI usually refers to the cd drive.

Try booting to safe mode and do a system restore prior to the software update.

 

[Mick Murphy]

{When powering on, prior to the"" typical system restore screen"", a black
sceen}

Would you mind explaining what the TYPICAL System Restore screen is?

And if is looking for a Bootable CD in the D: drive, it does not sound
promising.
F10 would be to restore to factory standards.

 

[sgopus]

I assume we are talking about a laptop, since you didn't specify and you said
removed the battery, hence laptop.
You need to get the error number that is displayed just before it reboots,
to do this you go into the BIOS and change it's settings to stop on error so
you can write it down, then report back here what the error number is, it's
referred to as a windows stop error.
One other thing, Please do not cut corners when posting a question asking
for help, as much detail as possible will help considerably, in figuring out
what the problem is.