Windows not booting, not even into safe mode?

danceMB · 5 Jun 2006 at 08:19

Tried booting into windows yesterday, but it only gets as far as the windows xp screen with that green bar, the bar moves for a few seconds, stops then the computer reboots itself, and thats what it does every time now.

I did try and install a new graphics card, but put back my old one that always works but still the same problem now. It detects both my HDD's in the BIOS.

The most worrying thing is that it wont even boot into safe mode, as at some point when I choose that it reboots before it gets to Windows as well, and even tried to re-install windows, but when it reads that its "identifying" the drives, it just freezes when it reads my main drive, so it looks like something is definatly wrong here

danceMB · 5 Jun 2006 at 09:35

I might be stupid here, but what is mbr?

I would like to boot to a command prompt with my windows CD, but it wont let me. I guess I could try and boot to the command prompt with a boot disk that im sure I have lying around somewhere.

One thing that might or might not be significant is that it wont even let me re-install windows, because when I try, it comes up that it is "identifying" my HDD, but then it just stays there and goes no further, so not even that works. As that doesnt work, im at a loss

danceMB · 5 Jun 2006 at 13:47

I did choose the repair option, but before it does that it has to "identify" both of my hard drives, but it wont identify my 120gig hard drive I have, it just stops there and doesnt go any further. I ran it all last night and still this morning it was the same, so im at a loss what to do if the windows cd doesnt let me repair or re-install

danceMB · 6 Jun 2006 at 01:16

Im having my IT expert come round and have a look at it as im unsure what is the best solution and he will know. Means yet more money to an uncertain future for my machine, but I cant afford the Uber machine im hoping for sometime next year. Pretty tempting to treat it to a new HDD, that would solve the problem straight away im sure

danceMB · 6 Jun 2006 at 22:41

Thats true I suppose, trouble is all the time & effort that it takes putting everything back on there again, takes a good few nights to get it back to where I want it. Would be tempting to have that 7200.10 320gig drive, supposedly makes things faster, should do considering my HDD are 3 years old now!