Windows wont start

[Guest]

Hi when I start my computer I just get the black screen with some basic data
but nothing about a hard disc failure. It says press r to fix but this
does'nt seem to fix it. Is this where a MS-DOS start up disc might work?Any
ideas?

 

[John John]

It takes about two minutes to make a boot floppy, make one and try it!
Then you will have a bit more to go on. See here:

http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/ntboot/

Also, be precise with your information, the quality of the help can only
be as good as the quality of the information available. "Some basic
data..." and "press r..." doesn't tell us much! Tell us EXACTLY what is
on the screen, that basic data might not mean much to you but to someone
else it may contain a wealth of useful information!

John

 

[Guest]

Hi John, I tried the boot floppy but still nothing, all I get is stuff like

Dell Dimension 4400
BIOS Version A00
...........
...............

Fixed disc 0 Maxtor 4D04OH2
ultra dma mode ATA/100

.........
Press, <Del> to resume

I set 1st boot to floppy, 2nd to hard drive and 3rd to atapi cd-rom ..tried
it in other configurations aswell, with and without the XP installation disc

but it just says invalid system disc replace the disc and then press any key
or

.....windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM
You can attempt to repair this file by starting windows setup using the
origionalsetup cd-rom
Select 'r' at the first screen to start repair..then..

invalid system disc replace the disc and then press any key

I did get an A/ (prompt) at one point and tried typing setup and a few
other things but it didnt respond..what should I type?

 

[John John]

This is usually fixable and if System Restore was working properly and
if you have fairly recent restore points, the results of the repair are
usually pretty good. See here:

How to recover from a corrupted registry that prevents Windows XP from
starting
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

John