Won't go past START UP

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Guest

I have an acer, using windows XP. Everything was fine untill tried to start
comp. and it went to the startup screen and no matter what action i chose
(safe mode etc....), it would go to the blue screen, which says STOP on
bottom line. Then directly back to startup screen and so on. My hard drive is
almost full, only have like 1GB left. I'm hoping i can recover all info.
First time ever had a problem, it's saying it could be sofware or hardware i
downloaded, but havn't done anything abnormal. Anyone have any suggestions?
 
In these situations the key thing to keep in mind is "G O S L O W".
Usually it's Fixable, however many users tend to panic and start to
do multiple/random operations to fix it themselves. This just digs the
hole you're in much deeper.

The 2nd lesson is to always have data backed up. Most times on a
weekly schedule. Loosing any data is bad, but a weeks' worth isn't
too bad. EVERY disk drive will eventually become corrupted or die.

On to the issue. You need to capture the "Stop" event code(s). XP is
by default configured to Automatically restart on a stop ( Sounds funny
doesn't it ). You can try to run Safe Mode ( Last Known Working
Configuration ). This is a short-term system roll-back that allows you
to re-run the last successful boot/login. From a "Cold Start", you need
to press F8 repetitively about each 1/2 second. The system will stop
and present you with the Safe Mode boot menu. If you can get the PC
to boot - DO NOTHING, besides backing up your personal data.
Better yet if you have imaging capability ( True Image, Ghost ) take a
image of the drive so your chances of making things worse are less
likely.
 
I have an acer, using windows XP. Everything was fine untill tried to
start
comp. and it went to the startup screen and no matter what action i chose
(safe mode etc....), it would go to the blue screen, which says STOP on
bottom line. Then directly back to startup screen and so on. My hard drive
is
almost full, only have like 1GB left. I'm hoping i can recover all info.
First time ever had a problem, it's saying it could be sofware or hardware
i
downloaded, but havn't done anything abnormal. Anyone have any
suggestions?
Click to expand...

First thing to do is to backup the data. Here are several ways to
accomplish that.

1. Take the drive out of the computer and install it as a slave drive in
another Windows XP or 2000 computer. It should read the drive ok, so you can
copy the data. In lieu of installing as a slave drive, put it in an external
hard drive enclosure, (these are readily available at computer supply stores
in the $20 range) and connect that through USB to another computer.

2. Create a bootable Bart's PE disk, boot from that, then copy the data to
external USB drive or flash drive.

3. Download a bootable Linux distro called Knoppix. Create a bootable CD
from that, boot from it, and copy the data to USB drive or flash drive, or
if the computer has two CD drives, one of which is a burner, then use the
k3b burning program on the Knoppix CD to burn the data to CD.

4. Take it to a competent computer tech to backup the data.

You mention only having 1GB free space left. I don't know how large the
drive is, but you should never let free space get less than 15%.

What is the exact error message with the Stop?
 
"stop"OxOOOOOOED (Ox84340030,Oxc000009C,OxOOOOOOOO,OxOOOOOOOO) is the message
i get.....
the blue screen pops up only a second and goes back to start up menu. I
tried starting in Safe mode and all the modes but nothing, I tried the F8
option but wouldn't let me boot up still.
 
Your disk drive has either failed completely or is corrupted and
preventing XP from starting. Sometimes you can run Recovery
Console and perform a Chkdsk on the drive. However, Chkdsk
can sometimes remove data in the course of fixing the drive and
that's something you probably need to avoid until you can recover
(if possible) your data from it. You probably need to locate a PC
shop that can do data recovery for you or confirm that the drive
has completely failed.
 
"stop"OxOOOOOOED (Ox84340030,Oxc000009C,OxOOOOOOOO,OxOOOOOOOO) is the
message
Click to expand...

Those O's are actually 0's so the error is 0x000000ED. See this link:
http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm

The first reference in that article points to here:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=297185&sd=RMVP

Make sure you have first backed up the data on the drive by one of the
methods I gave you. If you slaved the drive in another computer or put it
in an external hard drive enclosure, then run chkdsk /r on the drive from
there. If it's still in your computer do this from the recovery console.

To enter the recovery console boot from the XP installation CD. Take the
first R for repair. Enter the number for the Windows installation, normally
1. Then enter the password for the built in Administrator account when
prompted. Once in, at the command prompt, if the hard drive is detected run
chkdsk /r.

If the drive is not detected, you'll need to replace the drive.

How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654/en-us
 
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