Odd problem

[Dallows]

So I build my friends pc and everything was going smooth for months. Until one day he was in a rush and shut down the computer, and as it was in the process of shutting down (windows xp) he hit the light switch on his wall and shut the computer off cold prematurely. This has never really caused a problem before. But for some reason this time, triggered something bad. Cause I can't get into safemode even. Tried all different settings but every time it goes to boot up, and restarts right away when it gets to the windows xp loading screen. When you try to boot normally there's a quick flash of an error message (blue screen) but I can't see what it says, restarts too fast. Any ideas on what could have gone wrong?

 

[defakto]

bad things can happen if youpower down incorrectly like that. Your best bet is an xp repair install from the disk. Should keep all your settings and software just like they were.

 

[Zidoas]

So I build my friends pc and everything was going smooth for months. Until one day he was in a rush and shut down the computer, and as it was in the process of shutting down (windows xp) he hit the light switch on his wall and shut the computer off cold prematurely. This has never really caused a problem before. But for some reason this time, triggered something bad. Cause I can't get into safemode even. Tried all different settings but every time it goes to boot up, and restarts right away when it gets to the windows xp loading screen. When you try to boot normally there's a quick flash of an error message (blue screen) but I can't see what it says, restarts too fast. Any ideas on what could have gone wrong?

That's a memory problem. If you have spare rams, take out the ones in the machine and put the spare ones in. I'm 95% sure it's a memory problem.

 

[Dallows]

memory you say. Never thought of that. I'll switch them out and see what happens.

 

[MaMMa]

yea try using one stick only as well. reset your BIOS. take the CMOS battery out for like 20 mins, NO LESS!!!1 also try taking the power cable out of PSU and tapping the power button on the computer about 10 times.

 

[Dallows]

okay, so far the ram things didn't work, trying the cmos clear now. I can't figure out how to get a repari install though, don't understand why. the option like isn't there.

 

[z-lite]

First, try a chkdsk before reinstalling. Boot the computer with the Windows XP install CD and choose R on the first screen to load the Recovery Console. Push 1 to choose C:\Windows and then enter your admin password, or just hit enter if none. Then do "chkdsk /p" at the prompt. After it's done, type exit and hit enter and take out the CD. Windows should boot fine, if not you'll have to reinstall Windows (don't format so that you don't lose the data).